Investigating Korean estate assets and negotiating a division agreement for an heir long resident in the U.S.

The client, who had moved to the United States about 20 years earlier and acquired U.S. citizenship, visited Korea after learning that his elderly mother had passed away.

Some of his siblings living in Korea presented him with the list of assets they had identified and proposed dividing it in certain proportions. The client did not want a dispute with his siblings over the estate, but having lived abroad for a long time, he did not fully know the state of the assets in Korea, and he wanted to confirm the actual estate and his own rights before dividing the assets reasonably.

Jaehoon Lee did not rely only on the materials presented by the siblings, but carried out an investigation to confirm the full extent of the estate.

He checked real estate registrations and financial assets, and reviewed and cross-checked materials including the Korean government's one-stop inheritance inquiry service, tax and insurance records, and the materials provided by the siblings. In the process, he identified real estate and financial assets that had not been included in the list originally presented, and also established several lifetime gifts the mother had made to some of the heirs.

Based on the confirmed estate and the record of lifetime gifts, he reviewed each heir's inheritance relationship and the matters that could affect the division of the estate. In particular, because there had been lifetime gifts, he also reviewed the legal relationships to be considered in the division negotiations, including the client's statutory forced-share (yuryubun) rights.

Rather than fighting his siblings in court, the client wanted to negotiate reasonably with an accurate picture of the assets and his own rights. Based on what the investigation and legal review had confirmed, Jaehoon Lee therefore conducted the estate division negotiations among the heirs.

The negotiations were conducted after the estate, the lifetime gifts and the client's inheritance rights had been fully confirmed. As a result, all heirs agreed and an estate division agreement was concluded without the matter turning into an inheritance lawsuit.

The client, who as a long-term U.S. resident had found it difficult to grasp the state of the Korean estate directly, was able to confirm the full picture of the assets, including the omitted assets and lifetime gifts, review his legal rights, and then divide the estate by agreement on that basis.

Related: Cross-Border Matters · International Inheritance Center · U.S. Services · Korean Inheritance Center

This case study is based on confirmed facts of an actual matter; information that could identify the client or the matter has been anonymized. Outcomes depend on the facts and applicable law of each matter.