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…
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.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
You may have known that China has enacted its first ever Civil Code incorporating and codifying quite a few pieces of separate civil laws into one statute. The old China Succession Law was refreshed and replaced by the Succession chapter in the Civil Code.
In the Succession Chapter of the Code, there are quite a few significant…
This question has been raised frequently over time. A recent inquiry was from a client in UK who has a couple of real properties in China. Upon working on his estate planning, he wondered whether he should write a single will covering both his UK and China assets or write a separate will for China assets. By the way, the inquirer is British, domiciled and habitually…
On May 28, 2020, China has just enacted its first Civil Code, to be effective as from January 1, 2021, a long-awaited legislation that aims to codify China’s fragmented civil laws. Brought under its umbrella are China Civil General Provisions (Chapter I), China Property Law (Chapter II), China Contract Law (Chapter III), China Personal Right Law (IV),…
I have written quite a few posts back in regard of foreigners inheriting estates in China:
How a foreigner inherit properties in China
Inherit Personal Properties in China
China Estate Planning: how to Deal with Your China Assets Generally
There are quite a few more articles in that regard, pls use the blog search function to locate them.
None of those posts have…
It is not a rare phenomenon: your elderly parents in China is being taken care of by a remote relative while you are overseas; after your parent dies and you think of carrying out inheritance of the estate properties (real estates, bank deposits), to your big shock, that relative (whether cousin or someone else) produces a will out of the blue which says that your…
Just approached by a client from Southeast Asia who inquired about inheriting his Dad’s estate in China, a real property in Shanghai.
He contacted me because he felt suspicious of something that must have gone wrong about his current lawyer working on the inheritance matter. It has been almost a year and the client has spent most of their budget for the …
Over the last 10 years, I and my team have been offering legal services related to inheritance and estate planning for clients from many other countries outside of China. We have written a number of posts on this blog in that regard.
As per request from an American lawyer, Ms. Jiah Kim, who specializes in cross-border estate planning catering to her American clients,…
This is the third post regarding inheritance of corporate shares in a China company. Again it is about a special situation that may become more and more in reality with more and more Chinese riches migrating to foreign countries.
I. Facts of the Case
In 2002, a Chinese husband set up a trading company with a third party, and business went well. In 2006, the…
Does it, the following cited paragraph, look familiar to you in any way?
…Good Day Sir
I am an American and was contacted by Citic Bank in November of 2015 some months ago as heir to a sum of money from there bank. They have set fees for months and I have paid all but this final fee which is in route to them by transfer, but they only give me 72 hours. They have never told
Many foreigners are concerned with China estate taxes when they inherit estates in China.
As a matter of Law, China has not formally enacted estate tax laws despite rumor about it for many years. I personally don’t foresee this enactment any time soon. After all, without this law, Chinese rich people are already fleeing this country for various reasons.…
Just ran across an interesting article posted on Economist website (click here for the whole article), depicting the pains and complexity surrounding cross-border inheritance. It is true indeed, in particular if China is involved in the case of inheritance of estates in China by foreigners.
Jurisdictions
…Dealing with the belongings of the dead is a grim
Moving money, assets and property out of China is quite a sensitive matter in China, though such moves take place every day across the Chinese borders. It is a known secret that a bulk of the money so moved is illegal proceeds generated by corrupt officials and their cronies. While we see a great deal of illegal transfer across the border, for ordinary people, moving…
China themed information is pervasive throughout the web. Randomly, I came across an article discussing China inheritance or succession system, entitled “facts about Chinese society’s inheritance“.
While the bulk of the information contained in the article is correct, it will be useful to clarify some of the points made therein.…
[Please note that this English version of Chinese succession law is quoted from Internet resource, and is not work product of the author of this blog, Jason Tian. If you have any question about the accuracy of the text or you want to get clearer about any aspect of this law, you can contact Jason Tian for help using “Contact” on this blog.]
LAW OF SUCCESSION…
,You may have understood a little bit about how the inheritance/succession law operates in China after reading one of posts here “inherit a real property in China“. I have received a few inquiries on how they should make preparation in order to inherit a house in China. As those questions are quite generic in nature, I summarize the related information…
The following is an inquiry I receive from a HK lawyer regarding notarization of wills. As it may be a general issue among people living outside China mainland, I publish the question and answer here for your reference.
Dear Sirs,
I am a Hong Kong solicitor. I have a client who want to make a will in Hong Kong but she has property in Shanghai.
I will write a will for her.…
With the development of internationalization of China, it has saw steady rise in the number of cases where foreigners seek to inherit real estate properties located in China. As it is a cross-border issue, it may vex foreigners because of the complicated legal formalities that you need to go through in order to be able to succeed to the apartment/house in China.…
