Legal relationship in the absence of an heir

Abstract

When the inherited dies, his or her property is succeeded on to the heir, but if there is no heir, special handling methods are required. For these cases, the Civil Code stipulates how to deal with inherited property without an heir. According to this, if there is no heir, a person to manage the inherited property is appointed to manage the property and distribute the property to inheritance creditors or requestees or find an heir. If an heir is not found, the property is distributed to a specially connected person. And if any property remains after going through the above procedures, it is returned to the state. However, the above procedure takes a lot of time and money, and the court must decide who will be responsible for this. But, in the case of unrelated people with little inherited property, it is cumbersome to go through civil law procedures, so the Social Welfare Services Act provides for a simple method to handle inherited property. According to this regulation, when an unrelated person dies leaving behind assets worth less than 5 million won, the head of the detention facility prepares a list of the assets, holds a funeral, and then reverts the remaining assets to the local government. This procedure has the advantage of being able to easily organize inherited property relationships of unrelated people, but it is problematic in that it may be difficult for the head of the facility to take charge of this task. In the case of death while confined in a facility, the head of the facility can proceed with funeral and property management procedures, but in other cases, public officials in charge of the local government have no choice but to perform the duties. Therefore, in order to solve this problem, it will be necessary to establish an organization at the national level that can take charge of funeral and property management procedures for unrelated people and have that organization handle the remaining assets of unrelated people.