Pass down the family business with integrity; Guangzhou Real Estate Registration Center tackles the public’s urgent, difficult, and pressing concerns and hopes

Real estate, as the most core asset for many households, makes its inheritance registration work not only a matter of legal seriousness, but also a continuation of family ties. Recently, the Guangzhou Real Estate Registration Center (hereinafter referred to as the “Registration Center”) handled two real-estate inheritance cases with typical significance. In the process, people could see both the rigor of legal procedures and feel the complexity of historical legacy issues, while also witnessing the key role of “written commitments” in addressing the public’s urgent and pressing concerns.

Proof Across Time: Using “Commitments” Instead of “Proof”

When handling property inheritance, the descendants of Chen Mouhua and Mai Mouyun encountered a common problem: Chen Mouhua died in 2014, while Mai Mouyun died in 2021. During their lifetimes, both of the elderly were over eighty years old. According to relevant laws and regulations, aside from children’s circumstances, the registration authority also needs to confirm the death of their parents to clarify the full scope of all statutory heirs. However, due to the passage of time, the applicants truly could not provide death certificates of their grandparents’ generation. If the entire inheritance process were blocked by a single document, it would clearly not align with the purpose of benefiting the public and making things convenient.

In this situation, the Registration Center initiated the “notice-and-commitment system.” This is a便民 measure that Guangzhou began piloting in 2019 and has continued to improve and optimize in recent years. The applicable scope includes: when the decedent has reached 80 years of age or older at the time of death, and the applicant, after exhausting all means of obtaining evidence, still cannot provide the decedent’s parents’ death certificate. After the applicant made a written commitment stating that “the parents of the decedents, Chen Mouhua and Mai Mouyun, died before them,” and explicitly stated “they voluntarily accept social oversight and assume the legal consequences of false commitments,” the Registration Center, based on the existing application materials, smoothly advanced the subsequent registration procedures.

Integrity is a cornerstone of social operation. This single written commitment is not only a simplification of procedures, but also an endorsement of personal credit. In real-estate inheritance, for materials such as “death certificates” that are indeed difficult to obtain, using written commitments made by all statutory heirs can both resolve the public’s real difficulties and strengthen the construction of a social credit system.

Sailing Across the Sea and Shares: “Reservation” and “Equality” in Statutory Inheritance

In the case of Chen Mouhua, there was also a special circumstance. They have a daughter who left for the United States as early as 1985 and had her household registration canceled. She is currently missing as to her whereabouts and cannot be contacted. Under these circumstances, the Registration Center did not put the entire registration on hold due to one party being unreachable. Pursuant to relevant laws, regulations, and policies, for heirs whose whereabouts are unknown, their share to be inherited should be reserved; ultimately, they adopted a plan of “reserving the share to be inherited by an equal-share method, and handling the inheritance registration of the remaining shares.” This approach both protects the property-rights registration needs of the heir handling the inheritance and, in accordance with law, safeguards the lawful rights and interests of the heir located overseas (or with unknown whereabouts), avoiding subsequent disputes that could arise from disposing of another person’s property without authorization.

Inheritance is not only the transfer of rights, but also the continuation of family property. Even if the heirs are far across the sea or have no news at all, the law still protects their statutory share, ensuring fairness and justice in the distribution of property.

Interwoven Relationships: Determining Inheritance by Representation and Successive Inheritance

Another case showcases the complexity of inheritance legal relationships. A certain house was jointly owned by husband and wife Xiao Mou and Yang Mouying. Xiao Mou died in July 2011, and his spouse Yang Mouying died in October 2013. Together, they had five children. Xiao Mou’s parents and Yang Mouying’s parents both died before them. The eldest child died in November 2009, and had one child, Xiao Moulan, with no adopted children. The second child died in November 2016. During his lifetime, he had two marriages. With his first-marriage spouse (who died in July 2002), he had one child, Xiao Mouxin. With his second-marriage spouse Zhang Mou, he had no children; Zhang Mou had one child with the first-marriage spouse, Meng Mou. The second child and the stepchild Meng Mou did not form a relationship of upbringing. Aside from the children mentioned above, there were no adopted children. This inheritance case involves multiple legal relationships:

1. Inheritance by representation: Since the eldest child died before the decedents, Xiao Mou and Yang Mouying, the share he was entitled to would be inherited by representation by his daughter (Xiao Moulan).

2. Successive inheritance: The second child died after both decedents, and the inheritance share originally belonging to the second child became the second child’s own estate as well, resulting in successive inheritance.

3. Determination of the relationship between stepfather/stepmother and children: The second child did not establish a relationship of upbringing with the child (Meng Mou) brought by his remarried spouse Zhang Mou; therefore, Meng Mou does not enjoy inheritance rights.

4. Definition of marital property: The second child and his remarried spouse Zhang Mou had writtenly agreed that the property-rights share that they inherit belongs to their individual property, not to marital community property.

Faced with interwoven and complex legal relationships, staff at the Registration Center worked through it methodically. Through a series of sorting and determinations, they confirmed that the house should be jointly inherited by three living children—Xiao Moulan, Zhang Mou, and Xiao Mouxin. However, the three children and Zhang Mou and Xiao Mouxin signed a 《Statement of Waiver of Inheritance Rights》 to voluntarily forgo their inheritance rights to their shares of the estate. Ultimately, the Registration Center handled the inheritance registration of this property for Xiao Moulan alone.

Behind each inheritance case is a family story. The staff of the real-estate registration institution are not only registrars of property rights, but also implementers of the spirit of the rule of law and witnesses to the transmission of family wealth. They use the law as the standard and integrity as the bond, properly arranging the estate of the deceased and safeguarding the property rights of those still living.

Warm Tips from the Registration Institution to Citizens:

1. Pay attention to drafting wills: Clearly express intentions through a will, which can effectively reduce disputes among children later.

2. Process inheritance procedures in a timely manner: Promptly complete inheritance transfer registration not only clarifies property rights, but also helps avoid complex issues such as successive inheritance caused by the passage of time leading to lost materials or personnel changes.

3. Honest credit is the foundation: Whether it is a commitment that the parents died first or a statement waiving inheritance, every signed document represents legal responsibility. The system encourages simplifying procedures through integrity-based commitments, but it also maintains zero tolerance for false commitments.

By/Guangzhou Daily New Huacheng reporter: Du Juan; Correspondent: Sui Gui Zixuan

Guangzhou Daily New Huacheng

【Source: Guangzhou Daily】