this is about legal issues relating to cross-border marriage, divorce, inheritance, succession, estate planning and other general civil law issues such as tort, road traffic accidents, personal injury, which often confront expats in China.
As a cross-border family lawyer in China, there are always clients from USA or China dealing with estates inheritance or asset transfer to United States. Very often, American tax issues are one of the core concerns. Thus, I have endeavored to take the trouble to understand American complex federal tax systems esp in regard of estate planning issues.
This is an open secret, even to IRS in USA that many American citizens marrying foreign nationals may hide their assets in such foreign countries where their spouses are from.
A typical example: an American businessman gets married with a China lady and in order to avoid high-rate taxes levied by IRS, the American husband keeps quite a bit of cash in the bank account…
The world is changing and evolving all the time. Something that was unthinkable in the past may happen now. China, as a conservative society in contrast to western societies, has been getting liberal over time, as reflected in legislation and judicial practice.
A woman won a land-mark case against her lover, who claimed …
Dealing with inheritance issues, we occasionally encounter inquiries about death compensation arising from fatal accidents though we don’t generally deal with many personal injury cases in China. Instead, we focus on how death compensation is treated in the course of inheritance and estate administration.
This is an interesting case that deserves a post itself, shedding further lights on the issue whether a spouse (often wives) is legally entitled to take back properties or cash that is transferred to a third party mistress. We used to write a post about this on this blog 10 years: what if your spouse buys a property for his or her lover in China?
In the area of cross-border estate planning practice, the term “forced heirship” is a concept that shall be given due heed.
As a family lawyer in China working on both divorce and estate planning, I would like to introduce forced heirship rules and its implications under Chinese laws.
I. What is Forced Heirship
Forced heirship is a regime restricting…
We are talking about China courts dividing marital properties involved in cross-border divorce cases where choice of law applicable to the division of marital properties plays a deciding and vital role that could lead to wildly different result.
By the way, this is not the first post discussing property division…
A recent case prompted us to delve into the issue of ownership of home properties bought by couples with capital contribution from their parents.
It is commonplace in China (esp. in first tiered cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou) throughout the country, young couples often buy their first home, with substantial…
Recently, we have received quite a few inquiries from foreigners who want to know whether they are eligible for applying for China green card. That is probably because they have read our post a while ago when China government published a draft regulation overhauling current regulation.
It was a bit surprising to see the surging demand for China…
Insurances are popular in China. People in China rural villages are buying various insurance products, mainly, health insurance, and personal accident insurance. In urban population, many people buy life insurances (with dividend payout or investment components), and annuity insurance as well.
Our team have been dealing with inheritance of estates in China for more than a decade, most of time, on behalf of foreign heirs or beneficiaries.
I. Facts of the Case
In a recent case, the decedent had two wills respectively dealing with estates in China and estates in USA. The China Will covers both personal and real properties mainly in Shanghai, and the American…
We used to touch on this subject matter some time ago from the perspective of estate planning: guardianship for the elderly under China law. In this post, we discuss some concrete issues related to custody of elderly people in China. To many overseas Chinese whose parents or grandparents are still living in China, this may be of their interests.
In older posts, we have discussed legal issues surrounding inheritance of personal properties in China. When it comes to inheritance of bank deposits in China, there is another layer of problem in practice: what if the inheritor or heir doesn’t have a bank account in China?
I. Real Case Scenario
An American man died back in USA, and his parents found out that he…
As we have pointed out in the past in our posts, family trusts in China are of a rare species, mainly because family trusts, an imported legal concept from abroad, have no local soil in history for them to thrive in China.
Recent years, family trusts are a hot topic in financial industry with more and more Chinese rich families are faced with the problem of family …
Over years, our team has practiced the inheritance/succession law and estate planning for foreign clients with assets in China. In most cases, we have no problem of explaining what inheritance means under Chinese law, but we do have a dispute over what we should do to complete the inheritance of his late father’s estate property in Shanghai, China.
It is not uncommon that a person dies during an ongoing court proceeding.
So, what will happen and ensue upon the death of a participating party to a court proceeding under Chinese laws? It is more of a procedural issue than a substantive one. Therefore, we should find answers in China Civil Procedure Law.
With its spectacularly successful fight against Covid-19 pandemic, China has proven itself to be a safe place to live in while much of the rest of the world is still panicking. So have you ever thought of permanently living in China?
Yes, get a China green card.
Since the Measures for the Administration on Examination and Approval for…
In the past, we have written four different posts about how foreigners can inherit corporate shares or equity interests in a China company. But none of those post addresses the particular issues related to inheritance of corporate stock of a public company or corporation.
If you wish to look back at those past posts, here they are:
It has almost been two years till we attained this long-awaited victory for our client, removing the blockage for the two-foreigner couple to divorce in China court.
Indeed, at the time of receiving the decision of the appellate court, the client and us almost gave up. We didn’t because there was no other solution…
According to news from Beijing Court Network on February 4, 2021, Beijing Fangshan District Court applied the new provisions in China Civil Code and awarded compensation to the full-time housewife in a divorce case for the first time.
In the case, the full-time housewife Wang claimed that she was entitled to housework compensation because she was responsible…
Jason Tian, the blogger, Senior Partner at Shanghai Landing Law Offices. You can reach him at: [email protected] or [email protected], or call him directly at+86-13816548421 (also his WhatsApp)
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