Inheritance registration support for foreign heirs and overseas Koreans. We carefully review the heirs, required documents and overseas procedures step by step.
Inheritance Registration Made ClearKorean inheritance registration rarely goes wrong on the paperwork alone — the real risk points are deadlines, disputed shares, and heirs who can't act for themselves (minors) or can't be physically present (overseas Koreans, foreign-national heirs). This guide walks through the areas that most often need a professional's judgment call, not just a checklist.
A 2024 Constitutional Court decision found several parts of the forced-heirship system unconstitutional, and the legislature has until 2025.12.31 to fix them:
When calculating the estate base for a forced-heirship claim, don't reach for tax-law intuition — Civil Code Article 1114 and Supreme Court precedent since 1996 set a different rule than the Inheritance Tax Act:
If you accepted an estate outright (or let the 3-month decision period lapse) without knowing debts exceeded assets — even if you'd already spent some of the estate — you can still file 특별한정승인 within 3 months of discovering the debt overrun. The contested issue is almost always "gross negligence" (중대한 과실): courts weigh the heir's age and occupation, closeness to the deceased, whether they lived together, and how actively they managed the estate afterward. Not using the government's free asset/debt lookup service is generally treated as a mark against you; long estrangement or no realistic way to have known, in your favor.
If debts still exceed the estate even after limited acceptance, a further step — estate bankruptcy (상속재산파산), under the Debtor Rehabilitation and Bankruptcy Act Art. 307 — lets the court liquidate and settle creditors formally, with reimbursable expenses (the special-acceptance filing cost, debt-settlement costs) deducted before creditors are paid from what remains. Any already-spent estate assets still have to be accounted for in the bankruptcy estate.
This depends entirely on how the beneficiary was designated:
One frequent question: does using an insurance payout to reimburse yourself for the deceased's medical/funeral bills you paid out of pocket count as "improper consumption" (부정소비) — which would void a limited acceptance? Case law says no, when the payout is for a personal-injury/medical policy (not a death-benefit policy) and the underlying costs qualify as estate-administration expenses — you're simply recovering a priority estate expense you advanced, not consuming estate assets.
The government's 안심상속 원스톱서비스 (Safe Inheritance One-Stop Service) checks 19 categories of the deceased's assets/liabilities at once — national and local tax arrears, all financial accounts (deposits, loans, insurance, securities), National Pension enrollment, vehicles, land, and more — filed via Gov24 or in person, either alongside the death report or within 1 year of the end of the month of death, taking roughly 7–20 days.
Missed that window? A separate 조상땅찾기 (ancestral land search) service can locate unregistered land under the deceased's name, but only if the deceased's detailed basic certificate shows a death date and the family relation certificate confirms the applicant's relationship — it's unavailable for deceased grandparents, deaths before 2007.12.31, a divorced ex-spouse, a step-parent applicant, or a minor applicant.
If you're using an appraisal to establish the tax-recognized market value (시가인정액) for an inheritance or gift registration, the appraisal's valuation date and issuance date both have to fall within a specific window: for inheritance, within 6 months before or after the date of death; for a gift, within 6 months before and 3 months after the gift date. Miss this window and the appraisal won't count as the recognized market value — with a direct tax impact.
Withdrawing a deceased's bank deposits generally needs the deceased's detailed basic certificate and family relation certificate (plus the deceased's closed family register if death predates 2008, the claiming heir is 3rd/4th priority, or per-stirpes succession means not all heirs appear on the family relation certificate), plus the same two certificates for any minor heir.
If the division follows a negotiated agreement rather than statutory shares, and a parent and minor child are co-heirs, the agreement cannot be signed in the minor's own name — a court-appointed special agent (특별대리인) must sign it, even if the parent isn't acquiring the property in question. Korean courts apply a formal, objective test for when a special agent is required — not a case-by-case look at whether interests actually conflict — so this applies essentially any time a parent and minor child are both heirs in a negotiated division. The special-agent petition must specify the exact scope of authority (e.g., a specific bank account to be retitled) — a broad, catch-all request will be rejected. Skipping this step voids the division agreement entirely.
A new Civil Code Article 1004-2 (effective 2026.3.17, retroactive to deaths from 2024.4.25 onward) lets a court strip inheritance rights — including the forced-heirship share — from an heir who gravely breached their duty of support, or committed serious criminal/abusive conduct against the deceased. This closes the gap left by the old Article 1004, which only disqualified heirs for outright crimes like attempted murder or will forgery — not decades of abandonment.
A claim can be filed by co-heirs within 6 months of learning that a disqualifying heir has become an heir. What matters in practice is evidence, collected early:
When an inheritance dispute coincides with a co-heir's declining capacity (dementia, for example), courts increasingly decline to appoint a family member as adult guardian — precisely because the family is the one in dispute. A qualified organization can serve as guardian instead, handling both 신상관리 (personal/welfare decisions — housing, care, medical consent) and 재산관리 (protecting the ward's share from being diverted, reviewing financial records, wills, and litigation, and pursuing recovery where assets have already been diverted) without taking either side in the family conflict — including tracking down and inventorying high-value personal property (art, antiques, vehicles) that's often overlooked next to real estate and bank accounts.
A 자기선언신탁 — where the settlor declares themselves trustee of their own property, by public deed (공정증서) at a notary office — avoids the trustee's fee a family or commercial trust would otherwise require, since there's no separate trustee. It's most useful for someone actively building wealth who wants to ring-fence a portion of it (a common figure is 10–30%) against a future business downturn — provided it's not being used to evade compulsory execution. This structure is far more established in the US, largely because of how costly and slow probate proceedings there can be.
Registration Directive No. 1778 classifies 외국국적동포 (someone Korean by birth who later naturalized abroad) as a foreign national, not a 재외국민, for property registration — so the foreign-national notarization rules apply to their inheritance paperwork too. Two different POAs come up, each with its own notarization path:
Power of attorney for the division agreement (상속재산분할협의): Directive Art. 6 requires the POA to specify the property being divided and the agent's identity precisely, sealed with the heir's registered seal — but Art. 12 lets a heir who can't obtain a Korean seal certificate substitute either a home-country government certification or a Korean consular notarization abroad (a Korean embassy/consulate in the country of residence) confirming the signature is genuine. The notarization must be taken on the POA document itself — not on a separately signed statement referring to it.
Power of attorney for renunciation of inheritance (상속포기): filed with the family court, not the registry — but needs the same signature-authenticity confirmation, most reliably obtained the same way, at a Korean consulate/embassy abroad. Where no Korean diplomatic mission is reachable, a local notary's certification is an alternative, though it may additionally need an apostille or consular authentication depending on whether the country is a Hague Apostille member. A certified translation is usually required alongside either POA, with the translator's name, address, and signature on the translation itself.
Inheritance Registration Made Clear
Consultar sobre este servicioThat provision was struck down as unconstitutional in 2024 and the legislature has until 2025.12.31 to amend the law — don't assume the old rule automatically continues unchanged.
Not necessarily. You can file a special limited acceptance (특별한정승인) within 3 months of discovering the debt overrun, as long as you weren't grossly negligent in not knowing sooner.
It depends entirely on the beneficiary designation. If the deceased named themselves as beneficiary, it's estate property; if they named an heir (or left it unspecified), it's that heir's own property, separate from the estate.
No — Korean courts require a court-appointed special agent for the minor in essentially every case where a parent and minor child are co-heirs in a negotiated division, regardless of whether interests actually conflict. Skipping this voids the agreement.
It's a new Civil Code provision (Art. 1004-2) letting a court strip inheritance rights from an heir who gravely breached their duty of support or committed serious misconduct against the deceased — and it applies retroactively to deaths from 2024.4.25 onward, not just after its 2026.3.17 effective date.
Have the POA notarized at a Korean consulate or embassy in your country of residence — this substitutes for a Korean seal certificate under Registration Directive 1778. The notarization must be on the POA document itself, not a separate signed statement.
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전선영 (Juen Suen Young)