Will is related to "afterlife", and
is also related to family harmony.
In recent days,
reporters have visited notary offices,
will databases and law firms in Guangzhou and Shenzhen. They found that
has also seen some new trends and new situations in
in terms of will inheritance in recent years.
Deputy Director of the Guangzhou Notary Office, He Siming, told reporters that since the implementation of the Civil Code, , the number of notarized wills has been increasing year by year. So far this year, the Guangzhou Notary Office and various certificate offices have received more than 10,000 notarized wills for citizens; and since the Shenzhen Will Library was established in 2016, the total number of wills has exceeded 20,000 so far.
Lawyer Lin Shujing, a member of the Guangzhou People's Congress and director of Guangdong Suiheng Law Firm, who has been engaged in community mediation for a long time, said that in the past two years, the consultation and mediation business on wills has increased significantly. In her opinion, it is mainly due to the increase in citizens' wealth and the awareness of wills.
Jie Youmin, who works as a public welfare lawyer in the Shenzhen Will Bank, told reporters that although the elderly are still the "main force" in making wills, the growth rate of young people's wills this year is also very fast. Many "post-80s, "post-90s" and even "post-00s" have made will arrangements in advance and left their real estate, deposits, etc. to their parents or partners.
New trend:
More "post-80s" and "post-90s" have begun to consider "afterlife"
He Siming introduced that in recent years, the population structure of people who have gone to Guangzhou notary office to handle will business have shown new characteristics. First, the proportion of wills made by the post-80s and post-90s has increased year by year, from 1% in the past to 10% today.
"We don't find it strange that young people at 30 years old come to make a will." He Siming said that from the perspective of the tendency toward younger will, it reflects the characteristics of young people's courage to accept new things; second, there are more and more types of property distributed in wills. In addition to traditional houses, cars, and deposits, equity , contract rights, financial products and other properties are also gradually increasing. Many people's wills even include WeChat accounts, game accounts and other virtual property .
Shenzhen Will Library is a non-profit public welfare project initiated by the Shenzhen Elderly Association, approved by the Shenzhen Civil Affairs Bureau, and established by the Shenzhen Happiness and Harmonious Inheritance Service Center.
A young man went to the Shenzhen Will Bank to consult with the will business.
Min Qishuang, chairman of Shenzhen Happiness and Harmony Inheritance Service Center, told reporters that 88% of the will involve real estate, although it is 4 percentage points lower than three years ago, it still accounts for the vast majority.
Min Qishuang noticed that the proportion of will handle groups under the age of 60 has increased year by year, among which the proportion of testamentary groups under the age of 30 has grown the fastest, from 1.97% in 2019 to 5.38% in 2021, an increase of nearly 1.5 times, and the number of people has increased by more than 3 times.
"My parents bought a house for me before marriage, and I left it to them."
lawyer Jie Youmin told reporters that the youngest testator in the will library has received at present is 22-year-old Xiaomei (pseudonym).
Xiaomei studied hard and made progress. She was admitted to a prestigious university in China. After graduation, she applied for overseas graduate students. "Xiaomei is worried that tomorrow or accident will not know which one will come first, so she came to the Shenzhen will library before going abroad." "I want to make a will and leave the property under my name to my mother."
It turns out that Xiaomei's parents are divorced, she has been living with her mother, and Xiaomei's property is purchased by her mother. Xiaomei learned that if she did not leave a will in advance, if she unfortunately died, her father would be able to share the property. Xiaomei was unwilling to cause trouble for her mother, so she made a will to make arrangements in advance.
Min Qishuang analyzed that compared with the elderly, young people have a stronger awareness of property planning and legal thinking. "Young people have a certain knowledge structure and have a correct understanding of the role and significance of the will." Min Qishuang said that in the wills made by young people, property funded by their parents often distributes property in advance through making a will.
Min Qishuang also found that the perception of future marriage risks has also prompted some young people to make wills in advance to avoid future property disputes caused by changes in marital status.
A young man left his deposit to his mother, brother or boyfriend
Min Qishuang told reporters that in addition to real estate, deposits, stocks, financial products and vehicles are also the main property of the middle-aged and young people, and now they have become the objects of distribution of wills. Jie Youmin told reporters that she had received a 25-year-old girl named Feifei (pseudonym), who had no real estate under her name and only had one salary card. In order to express his love for his mother, Feifei distributed her few deposits to her mother through a will.
Jie Youmin also received a client and made a will to leave the estate to her boyfriend and younger brother. The unmarried Xiaomin (pseudonym) has no real estate but has deposits. She and her boyfriend went to Shenzhen to work hard after graduating from college. Now they have been together for 5 years and their relationship is stable. Because I haven't gotten married yet, my boyfriend will not obtain the inheritance rights of . Xiaomin's parents are alive and inherit according to . As long as their parents are alive, her younger brother has no right to inherit. However, Xiaomin said that if she leaves unexpectedly, she hopes that her younger brother can be the executor of the will. Considering her parents' age, her boyfriend might choose a new life if she leaves. Xiaomin also kept a part of the deposit for her boyfriend in her will, and then left most of the deposit to her younger brother.
Family without children, partners inherit property from each other
Jie Youmin told reporters that among the people who make wills, there are more and more young and middle-aged people and unborn families.
"Unmarried young and middle-aged families and unborn families are mainly concentrated between the ages of 31 and 50, and have clearer concepts and needs for property planning." Jie Youmin told reporters that for unborn families, since they have no children, they will focus more on the pension security issues of themselves and their parents. It is most common for families with no children to inherit each other when making a will.
Jie Youmin told reporters that a couple who are nearly 50 years old and have no children, because they have no children, come to the Shenzhen will library and make an inheritance distribution plan in advance: if their parents are alive, part of the property will be distributed to both parents to ensure that they can live a decent and calm life in their later years. After more than 20 years of marriage, the couple has been working hard in Shenzhen and left most of their property to each other when they make a will.
"Main Force":
Guangzhou Notary Office, Shenzhen Will Library
60 to 70 years old makers account for nearly 50% of them
Notary wills are an important form of wills, and Guangzhou Notary Office is an important place for citizens to handle notarized wills. He Siming introduced that among the people who went to Guangzhou notary office to handle will business in recent years, the proportion of elderly people aged 60 to 70 is about 50%, while 30% of elderly people aged 70 to 80 are also making wills.
Guangzhou Notary Office, an elderly man is consulting for the will business.
Min Qishuang introduced that the total number of wills registered in Shenzhen will database exceeds 20,000, and the proportion of the elderly over 60 years old is nearly 80%. The elderly are still the "main force" of making wills, of which nearly half of the total number of wills made. Regarding the elderly’s will, Min Qishuang believes that the will should be prepared in advance.
Jie Youmin has been a public welfare lawyer in the Shenzhen Will Bank for more than three years. She noticed that the concept of making wills has gradually penetrated into the hearts of citizens in recent years. Jie Youmin once came into contact with an old lady. She had a self-built house before. She originally wanted to make a will to leave it to her children a hundred years later, but later this self-built house was demolished and she could change several houses. The old lady thought that it would be left to her children anyway, so she directly wrote her children's names on the demolition contract. However, after the real estate certificate was issued, the children who had already obtained the property rights would not support her, and the old lady finally had to go to court to sue. Therefore, Jie Youmin suggested that the elderly should have a good sense of planning when making a will.
Although the concept of "arrangement of the funeral after death" has gradually become popular, there will still be some special circumstances in actual operation that will be "difficulty in execution".
"Last wife" holds a will and transfers it difficult
Recently, Lin Shujing received an helper named Aunt Liu, who is nearly 70 years old. Her wife has passed away less than 4 months ago, but the three children born to her ex-wife refused to cooperate with the will left by her wife."They think that their father shouldn't leave the house to me as a stepmother."
Aunt Liu married her husband Wang Gui (pseudonym) in 1997. Both of them were second marriages. At that time, Wang Gui and his ex-wife had three sons. After marriage, Aunt Liu has been in charge of the family. In 2017, Wang Gui made a notarized will, stating that after his death, he would leave a commercial housing in , Haizhu District, to Aunt Liu for inheritance.
Since then, Wang Gui's health has deteriorated and he died in a nursing home in April this year. After his death, Aunt Liu took the will to handle the property transfer procedures, but encountered obstacles from Wang Gui's sons, who refused to hand over the property certificate to cooperate with Aunt Liu's transfer. "Although I am a stepmother, this house is the only place left to me by my wife. If they do not cooperate with the transfer of the property according to the will, where will I live in the future?" Recently, Aunt Liu has entrusted a lawyer to sue in court.
"In such remarried families, disputes between the original wife and the 'post-herd wife' are more common due to wills. In the past two years, such disputes have shown an increasing trend. In families with multiple children, remarried wives usually encounter resistance after their husbands die in inheritance according to the will. This type of dispute often delays longer and ultimately requires a court judgment to enforce it. Usually when the house is auctioned, the parties are willing to accept mediation. In some cases, there are also issues of adopted children and stepchildren, which are related to the scope of the heirs. These factors will bring greater mediation difficulties to the case." Lin Shujing said.
Worrying that children have conflicts, the mother has been slow to make a will
In recent years, He Siming has seen many cases of elderly children fighting for inheritance. "Many elderly people retire on the first day and come to make wills the next day. Because in their opinion, applying for a will is not the end but a new beginning. Once they make a will, they can enjoy their retirement life happily." He Siming said.
Grandma Wu (pseudonym) is in her 70s this year. Because her legs and feet are not flexible, she can only travel in a wheelchair. She has two sons and a daughter. After her wife passed away, Grandma Wu's health began to deteriorate and later she could not take care of herself. Because she was worried that her mother would only share the inheritance to her two brothers, in the past two years, Grandma Wu's daughter has pushed her to the notary office to make a will many times in a wheelchair.
notary had a separate conversation with the elderly. In the early stage, in order to grasp whether Grandma Wu’s thinking was clear, the notary first chatted with her family. Grandma Wu’s answers were all in line with the question. When asked, “Would you be willing to make a will to hand over the house to your daughter and notarize it”, Grandma Wu’s answer began to become vague.
Seeing the old man's behavior, the notary was aware of it, so he asked the old man's daughter to take her back. Grandma Wu's daughter also contacted a notary several times to find out the specific reasons why the will cannot be notarized. However, the notary said that the specific reason could not be disclosed because the process of making a will must be kept confidential according to regulations. After several times, Grandma Wu's daughter probably understood what was going on.
He Siming said that the old man once revealed his helplessness to the notary: the palms and backs of his hands are flesh, and I hope that the children can get along well and not have conflicts over the inheritance of inheritance .
The elderly make a will to leave the inheritance to "outsiders"
In addition to the elderly's children, there have also been cases of "outsiders" such as nannies participating in the distribution of elderly property in recent years. Lin Shujing once took over a will dispute. An old man in his 80s made a will before his death and gave his house with an area of more than 100 square meters to his nanny. After the old man passed away, the nanny took the old man's will and asked for the transfer of the property, but several of the old man's sons said that the nanny used means to coerce the old man to give her the house while she was sick, so she was unwilling to admit the effectiveness of the will. The court's first-instance judgment admitted that the elderly will held by the nanny was valid.
Then, the old man's sons found the hospital and learned that the old man had suffered cerebral hemorrhage during his hospitalization, which proved that the old man was unconscious at the time and did not have civil capacity. This self-written will has no legal effect. In the end, the nanny failed to get the house. "But some nannies are very careful in taking care of the elderly, so the elderly have the idea of giving the house to the nanny." Lin Shujing explained.
The threshold for "implementation" of wills is quite high
Lawyers suggest that streets and communities
provide will public services for the elderly
lawyers and lawyers and team members receive hundreds of business consultations or dispute mediation on wills every year, and there is still an increase in the number. She said that the wills written by older people are often flawed or invalid. "Common flaws include: the testator has not signed, the will has not been written on the date, and the witness procedure is flawed; the testator has a lack of ability to make a will, such as the person with limited capacity for conduct, , unclear consciousness, serious illness, etc.." Due to the flaws in the will, both parties will apply for handwriting appraisal or civil capacity appraisal, resulting in a long trial period of the case.
Lin Shujing said that in addition to the flaws in the will, there are several common situations that will make it difficult to "implement" the will.
First, the elderly sometimes write multiple wills. Which will is valid usually takes a long time to verify. Lin Shujing once encountered a case where one of the old man's sons took out a will written by the old man, and the content of the will indicated that a real estate and bank deposits were inherited by the son. But then the other children of the old man also took out their respective wills, and the content was different from the first will. "Later I found out that the old man wrote three wills in one day, and the children determined that the old man was no longer conscious at that time, and the old man's will was finally determined to be invalid."
Civil Code stipulates that if the testator made several wills, the final will shall prevail. In Lin Shujing's view, this gives testator more choices when making wills, but there will also be new situations in practice, that is, a person may have made too many wills in notarization offices, Chinese Will Library , law firms, judicial offices and other institutions at different times. "Due to the non-publicity of the will, the outside world is not aware of whether there are other forms of wills, and it takes a long time to review the will, which will cause the inheritance of the will be shelved."
Second, the kinship relationship cannot be identified, making it difficult to execute the will. When applying for a notarization of real estate inheritance, kinship proof is required, but sometimes it can also encounter "hindrance". Lin Shujing encountered this situation when she asked for help in her will. When she checked the elderly’s kinship, she found that in addition to her existing children, the elderly also had other heirs, and even the elderly’s children were not aware of it. "This requires the elderly's 'other heir' to find, otherwise the will inheritance will not be realized. But usually, only the name of the 'other heir' can be found, and its ID number, contact information, etc. cannot be found, just like looking for a needle in a haystack. Many testament inheritance cannot be realized for this reason."
Third, the elderly have children overseas, which makes it difficult to achieve testament inheritance. Lin Shujing once encountered a case where the old man had multiple properties in Guangzhou, and in his will, he stated that the property would be left to his younger son with poor financial conditions. But the old man's eldest son and second son are both abroad, and the brothers have a weak relationship, so the two brothers are unwilling to return to China specifically to assist the younger brother in handling inheritance. Therefore, the old man has passed away for two years and the inheritance of the house has not been completed.
"So sometimes it seems that the old man's will explain his affairs clearly, but it is not difficult to execute the will. Some wills have been delayed for several years but have not been inherited." Lin Shujing told reporters.
"Only-child parents
should also make good will planning"
Lin Shujing said that the most common disputes in will inheritance are the inheritance issues of the elderly's real estate. "Now a house costs several million or even tens of millions of yuan. If a will is not made, disputes will occur after the elderly die. Streets and communities should provide public welfare services to provide necessary help to the elderly." To this end, she suggested that first, establish regular will witness services in the community, streets or other departments, and then confirm the civil capacity of the elderly when making the will. This will help enhance the legality of the will and avoid "disputing" later; secondly, cultivate the elderly's awareness of will, such as establishing an inheritance executor in accordance with the provisions of the Civil Code to supervise the inheritance and distribution of the inheritance.
In view of the situation where the elderly make multiple wills, Lin Shujing suggested that the notary office and the real estate registration center should first conduct a probate examination when handling inheritance affairs. "The information sharing platform can be built by the Chinese Will Library, notary offices, judicial offices, etc. to break the information islands and thus reduce the difficulties in will execution."
"post-80s" and "post-90s" are mostly only children. Min Qishuang reminded that parents of only children should also make a will. "Many people think that only children should continue their parents' entire property." Min Qishuang said that according to our country's laws, the legal heirs in the first order have parents, children and spouses. If there is no will, they can all share the property of the deceased. In order to avoid unnecessary disputes in the future, parents of only children should also make will planning in advance.
"We suggest that children should respect the wishes of the elderly in handling inheritance, consider family affection more, and be filial to their children." He Siming said.
Shenrui Weekly
When "aphasia" meets "hot words"
When you read a long article of the public account, click on the message area, and the cursor of your mobile phone stops at the starting position of the message box. After thinking for a long time, you find that the emotions that have been brewing in your heart for a long time cannot find the appropriate words to make a sentence... A few minutes later, you finally wrote a few words: "I really think I have suffered from front-row aphasia."
Recently, the term "front-row aphasia" has become a hot word on the Internet - that is, when a person faces a large amount of information and wants to express a strong point of view or feeling, he cannot resort to words, and so on "aphasia".
Before "front row aphasia", the saying "text aphasia" appeared more. Internet memes appear frequently in the Internet era. While new vocabulary such as "yyds" (forever god) "absolute" and "absolute son" are being widely used, people unconsciously "lost" their original writing narrative ability; on the other hand, various "copy bloggers" appearing on social platforms have become popular objects.
is "text aphasia" on one side, but "copy-esque". What kind of emotions and thoughts are hidden behind such a language phenomenon? Recently, Guangzhou Daily All-Media reporters interviewed scholars from the fields of communication, sociology, linguistics, and online experts from talk show circles and universities.
text, pictures/Guangzhou Daily All-Media Reporter Zhou Weiliang, Xiao Huanhuan, Cheng Yilun Intern Text, Chen Qianyi
Poster Design: Zhou Zhenfeng
Source: Guangzhou Daily
