Q
I'm American — born in the US to a Korean father and an American mother, raised in the US, never lived in Korea. My parents divorced when I was young. My father remarried in Korea and had two more children. He died in Seoul six weeks ago; I found out from a cousin. My half-siblings have not contacted me. The cousin says my father owned an apartment and had "some debts from a business."
I don't know whether I count as an heir in Korea, given I'm a US citizen and wasn't in his life. I don't know whether the debts could somehow come to me. And I've now read something about a "three-month deadline" that has me worried I'm already in trouble by not doing anything.
Can you tell me: (1) Am I an heir under Korean law, and what's my share against a second wife and two half-siblings? (2) If his debts exceed his assets, am I liable — and what is the three-month rule? (3) What can I do from the US, and what if my half-siblings have already divided things up without me?
A Answer
You are an heir under Korean law with the same share as your half-siblings, your US citizenship and absence from his life do not change that, and the three-month deadline is real — it runs from when you learned of his death, and it is the window in which you can protect yourself from his debts. Six weeks in, you have time, but not much, and the first step is a decision about the debts, not a fight over the apartment. Your half-siblings cannot lawfully divide the estate without you; any division that excluded you is voidable, and the registry will show what they did.
Who inherits, and how much
Succession to a Korean national's estate is governed by Korean law under the Act on Private International Law (국제사법, gukje sabeop), which applies the deceased's national law. Under the Civil Act, the first-order heirs are the deceased's lineal descendants — all of his children, equally, regardless of which marriage produced them and regardless of nationality or residence — together with the surviving spouse. Article 1009 gives each child an equal share and the spouse one and a half times a child's share. With a spouse and three children, the spouse takes 1.5 parts and each child 1 part of 4.5: your share is 1/4.5, roughly 22%, of the net estate.
A will can alter this, subject to the reserved share (유류분, yuryubun): a child's reserved portion is half of the intestate share, and a will that gives you less can be challenged within one year of learning of it.
The debts and the three-month rule
Korean inheritance passes assets and debts together. An heir who does nothing accepts both unconditionally, and creditors can pursue the heir personally. The Civil Act provides two protections, each to be exercised within three months of the date the heir learned of the death and of being an heir: renunciation (상속포기, sangsok pogi), which removes you from the succession entirely, and qualified acceptance (한정승인, hanjeong seungin), which limits your liability to the assets you receive. Both are applications to the family court with jurisdiction over the deceased's last address.
If the debts may exceed the assets and you cannot tell, qualified acceptance is the usual choice: you keep whatever surplus exists and owe nothing beyond it. If you learn of the debts only later, a special qualified acceptance is available within three months of learning that debts exceeded assets, but it is harder to establish. Filing within the first window is the clean route.
Because you learned of the death six weeks ago, your three months run from then. Document that date — the cousin's message — because the court will ask.
What the half-siblings can and cannot do
A division of the estate (상속재산분할, sangsok jaesan bunhal) requires the agreement of all heirs; a division agreed without you does not bind you and can be set aside. Registry transfers of the apartment require the heirs' documents, and a transfer that omitted an heir is challengeable. Korean family and property registries are public enough that counsel can quickly confirm the heirs of record, the apartment's current ownership, and whether anything has moved since the death.
Where heirs cannot agree, a family court division proceeding decides shares and allocates assets. Your half-siblings' silence is not a legal act; it just means the division has not happened.
Doing this from the US
Your first document is proof that you are his child: your birth certificate showing him as father, apostilled, with a Korean translation. If he never registered you on his Korean family register, that is a common situation for children born abroad, and it is resolved by the birth record and, if disputed, by a court filing rather than by consent of the other heirs. A power of attorney (위임장, wiimjang), notarized and apostilled, authorizes Korean counsel to file the qualified acceptance or renunciation, obtain the registry records, and represent you in any division. You do not need to travel.
What to do now, and what not to do
Do not sign anything your half-siblings send you, in any language, until it has been read by your lawyer; an "acknowledgment" can be an acceptance or a waiver. Do not take any asset or pay any debt of the estate; acts of that kind can be treated as acceptance. Do obtain your apostilled birth certificate now and let counsel run the registry checks and file the protective application before the three-month date.
Practical insight
Overseas children of Korean decedents lose in two ways: by missing the three-month window and inheriting a business's debts they never knew about, and by assuming the Korean family's silence means they have no rights. The first is prevented by one court filing; the second by one registry search. Do both before you decide whether the apartment is worth pursuing.
Send us your father's name, date of death and last address, and we can confirm the heirs of record and the filing deadline within days — by text consultation or at +82-2-522-3959.
— MEGA X Law Firm Korea, Civil Litigation Team
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