Inheritance disputes are increasing... 'Will Custody Act' faces risk of repeal

Published 25 Mar.2024 16:28(KST)

Bill Proposed Last Year
Unlikely to Pass the 21st National Assembly Threshold

As an alternative to prevent inheritance disputes among family members, "writing a will" is gaining attention, and there are ongoing calls to introduce a "public will storage system" where courts and other public institutions keep wills. Although a related bill was proposed last year, it failed to pass the National Assembly and is at risk of being discarded. Experts unanimously agree that urgent improvements to the outdated will legislation are necessary.

Bill to Introduce ‘Public Will Storage System’ Proposed in September Last Year

According to legal newspaper coverage on the 22nd, the "Act on the Storage of Wills, etc." was introduced as a representative bill by Kim Sang-hee, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, in September last year and has been pending in the Legislation and Judiciary Committee since October of the same year. With only two months left until the 21st National Assembly closes on May 29, it is unlikely that the bill will pass through the committee and the plenary session of the National Assembly in time.

[Image source=Beomryul Newspaper]

The bill centers on establishing will storage offices at family courts or district courts to prevent forgery, alteration, loss, and damage of wills. Testators can apply to the "will custodian" managing the will storage office for the storage and inspection of their wills. Upon the testator's death, the custodian must promptly notify the relevant heirs of the storage of the will.

Additionally, after a period deemed necessary to prevent inheritance disputes following the testator's death, the will may be destroyed. Anyone objecting to such disposal can file an objection with the competent court. If a system for safely storing wills is established, the practice of writing wills could become more widespread.

Writing a will is emerging as an alternative to reduce inheritance disputes. Most inheritance disputes arise because heirs have no "last words" regarding the deceased's property before death, but leaving a will in advance reduces conflicts among heirs.

Since there is no system to publicly manage handwritten wills, Korea's will system is criticized as outdated. Lee Yang-won (65, Judicial Research and Training Institute class 14), vice president of the Lawyers' Association for Will Legislation Improvement, said, "Testators usually keep handwritten wills in a wardrobe or entrust them to beneficiaries or executors, which raises concerns about loss, damage, forgery, alteration, and questions about the authenticity of the will's creation and content. This sometimes causes the existence of a will to become a source of disputes. To enable anyone to easily make a will, the introduction of a public will storage system is urgently needed," he emphasized.

Japan Safely Stores Wills for Only 35,000 Won

Inheritance disputes are increasing every year. According to the Supreme Court Judicial Yearbook, the number of cases filed for "disposition of inheritance property division" steadily rose from 771 in 2014 to 2,776 in 2022. The number of "claims for return of statutory reserved portion" also more than tripled over ten years, from 590 in 2012 to 1,872 in 2022.

The rise in inheritance disputes is attributed to increasing deaths without heirs such as relatives due to rising real estate values, more unmarried individuals, and an increase in elderly single-person households. Japan enacted the "Act on the Storage of Wills by the Legal Affairs Bureau" in 2018 and has been operating a public handwritten will storage system since July 2020. Having entered a super-aged society in 2007 (where the population aged 65 and over accounts for more than 20% of the total population), Japan faced social issues regarding the handling of inherited property. A social consensus was formed that promoting wills, especially handwritten wills, was necessary to solve the problem.

Accordingly, the Japanese government implemented a revised inheritance law facilitating handwritten wills in July 2019 and enacted a law the following year for the Legal Affairs Bureau (equivalent to Korea's registry office) to manage the storage of handwritten wills. Users can pay 3,900 yen (about 35,000 won) to deposit their wills at storage offices located in regional Legal Affairs Bureaus.

The number of people entrusting their wills to the state in Japan is steadily increasing. According to the Japanese Ministry of Justice, by the end of June 2021, one year after the law's enforcement, there were 20,849 storage applications (from July 2020 to June 2021), averaging 1,737 per month, and from July 2021 to May 2022, 15,039 storage applications were received. According to data released by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in 2022, the number of inheritance disputes decreased by 38.2% within two years after the introduction of the public will management system.