Legal Dictionary of Pakistan

familiae emptor

[Latin "estate purchaser"] Roman law. A trustee who received an inheritance by a fictitious purchase and distributed it as the testator instructed. -Also termed emptor familiae. See HERES; TWELVE TABLES. "At some date, probably long before the XII Tables, men on the point of death, unable to make a true will because there was no imminent sitting of the Comitia, adopted the practice of conveying all their property ... to a person who is described as the familiae emptor, and who is said by Gaius to be in loco heredis. Instructions were no doubt given to him as to the disposal of the property or part of it, but it is not clear that these were enforceable ...." W.W. Buckland, A Manual of Roman Private Law 175 (2d ed. 1953).