earticle

영어

The inheritance policies have developed with historical and sociological backgrounds. As the society has developed from the traditional patriarchal systeminto the modern industrial society, the family-focused community in the past has been dissolved and individuals have been freed from the community.
Also,the concept of property of family has ceased to exist, and all the properties substantially became to belong to individuals. In spite of this fact, as prescribed by Article No. 1005 and Item No. 2 of Article No. 1026 of the Civil Law of Korea, simple recognition of inheritance is regarded as the principle. However, in the society with individualism, rights orobligations can’t be compulsorily inherited to individuals while neglecting their free will and intention. Thus, the natural comprehend succession by inheritance is also limited according to an individual’s opinion, and this established the limited recognition and waiver policy. When the limited recognition policy is executed, the inherited property of individuals and their own property areseparated, and their own property is protected from any liabilities even if the inherited property has more liabilities than assets. Also, when the policy is compared with the waiver policy, which protects the successor’s property regardless of the liabilities of the inherited property, if there are more assets than liabilities after liquidation, the successor will be left with the assets while the releaser should also waiver the assets left if he/she executed the waiver policy of inheritance.
Thus, the limited recognition policy has the merit that the excessive assets will be naturally left to the successor and is regarded as a useful policy. Hence, the limited recognition policy can be regarded to conform to the original purpose of inheritance of property, and the existing Civil Law that prescribes the simple recognition as the principle should revised to prescribe the limited recognition policy as the principle instead and to make the policies of simple recognition and waiver to be applied on exceptional cases.