What term describes a person who would have been a beneficiary under a will, but the testator did not know about that person?

• A. Pretermitted Heir
• B. Pretermitted Child
• C. Preamble
• D. Codicil

Answer: (A)

This question tests how omitted beneficiaries are categorized when the testator was unaware of them. A pretermitted heir describes a person who would have been a beneficiary under the will but was unintentionally left out because the testator didn’t know about them. The idea is that the omission wasn’t deliberate, so the law often treats the person as entitled to a share they would have received, or an equivalent allocation, under the applicable rules. A pretermitted child is a specific subset—when the omitted person is a child born or adopted after the will is made—but the broader, controlling term for someone omitted due to the testator’s lack of knowledge or discovery is pretermitted heir. Preamble and codicil are unrelated concepts here; a preamble is just introductory language, and a codicil is a separate document used to amend a will.