Lee Jae-myung "Amend Civil Law to Prevent Inheritance of Parents' Debt by Minor Heirs"

Lee Jae-myung's 44th Small but Certain Happiness Pledge... Improvement of the Limited Approval System for Heirs' Inheritance

[Asia Economy Reporter Oh Ju-yeon] Lee Jae-myung, the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party of Korea, announced on the 10th that he will "amend the Civil Act to prevent the inheritance of debt by minor heirs."

Lee Jae-myung, the Democratic Party presidential candidate, is taking commemorative photos with supporters while moving by subway from Hyehwa Station in Jongno-gu, Seoul to Hongdae on the 9th. Photo by Yoon Dong-joo doso7@

On the morning of the same day, Candidate Lee announced the 44th small but certain happiness pledge on Facebook, titled "Preventing the inheritance of parents' debt by minor heirs." The pledge aims to prevent minor children from becoming credit delinquents by inheriting their parents' debt due to a lack of legal capacity, with the main point being to improve the limited approval system for heirs under the Civil Act.

Candidate Lee stated, "Recently, a heartbreaking story was reported in the media about a child just over two years old having to repay the debt of their deceased father," and added, "From 2016 to March 2021, 80 minors filed for personal bankruptcy due to inheriting their parents' debt."

He continued, "Our Civil Act has a limited approval system where heirs can either renounce inheritance or be responsible for their parents' debt only up to the value of the inherited property, but the legal representative must apply within three months from the date they become aware of this fact," and said, "However, there have been many cases where legal representatives lacked legal knowledge or the ability to respond and ended up bearing the parents' debt."

Candidate Lee emphasized, "If the legal representative missed the opportunity for limited approval, we will improve the current system to allow minor children to apply for limited approval within a certain period after reaching adulthood."

He explained that such a system improvement is expected to provide one more chance to prevent excessive parental debt from being inherited by minor children due to lack of legal response or unawareness.

Candidate Lee said, "We will expedite the related legislation as much as possible," and added, "We will properly protect young people so that they do not become credit delinquents burdened with their parents' debt that they cannot handle, and thus fail to take their first step into society."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.