19th Century Wills.

I have found several Wills from the 19th Century that states the value being left by the deceased is, for example "under £2000".
Can anyone help me with understanding this. Why does it say 'under' ?
If the value is say £1,500, then why not say £1,500.
Thank you in advance for your help.
Stephen49

 

I have also seen statements like that and assumed that different actions need to be taken if an estate is valued at more than a certain value. For instance, on some occasions there has been a later record altering the stated value of an estate and perhaps that is unnecessary for those instances where the value is under a certain threshold. These cut-off values do seem to increase over time so it probably is just a matter of trying to simplify the administration in those cases where an exact valuation is not significant.

 

Thank you very much Bryman and Tim for your feedback, which was interesting and helpful. Now I can appreciate that we might never know the exact value of an estate but pretty close.