Forced Heirship and Caregiving Gifts in South Korea

A parent dies. Months later, a lawsuit arrives from the siblings. The child who lived with the parent for over a decade, drove them to hospital appointments and paid the nursing bills is told to share the apartment the parent had given in gratitude. Under Korean law, that outcome was the norm for decades.

Korea’s Civil Act recognizes forced heirship, known in Korean as yuryubun and comparable to legitime or forced heirship in civil law systems. It guarantees each statutory heir a fixed fraction of the estate regardless of the decedent’s wishes. Korean law also recognizes a contribution share, but the two doctrines were kept entirely separate, so a caregiving heir could not deduct the value of their care. The Constitutional Court of Korea declared that separation unconstitutional in 2024, and the National Assembly amended the Civil Act in 2026. The amendment, however, was written to apply to successions opening on or after April 25, 2024. That left a large group of families whose parent had died earlier but whose litigation was still running. On June 11, 2026, the Supreme Court of Korea resolved their position.

1. Why did a caregiving child have to hand back the very property given in return?

Because the gift counted as a special benefit, and nothing in the statute allowed the caregiving to offset it.

Under the former Article 1118 of the Korean Civil Act, forced heirship borrowed Article 1001 and Article 1010 on representation and Article 1008 on the shares of heirs who received special benefits. It did not borrow Article 1008-2, the contribution share provision. That omission left the contribution regime and the forced heirship regime disconnected.

The Supreme Court of Korea confirmed the consequence. It held that a contribution share is a preliminary question within the division of an estate and has no relationship to forced heirship, so that even where a contribution share has been fixed by agreement among the coheirs or by a Family Court ruling, it cannot be deducted in calculating forced heirship, and no claim for return of a contribution share may be brought on the ground that the contribution share caused a shortfall (Supreme Court of Korea, October 29, 2015, Case 2013Da60753).

In practice, an heir could win a contribution ruling in the Family Court and still find it worthless in the civil forced heirship action.

2. What exactly did the Constitutional Court of Korea strike down?

On April 25, 2024, in Case 2020Hun-Ga4 and dozens of consolidated cases, the Constitutional Court of Korea reviewed the forced heirship regime as a whole and reached three different outcomes.

On Article 1118, the Court’s reasoning was direct. Because Article 1008-2 was not applied to forced heirship, the contribution regime and the forced heirship regime were severed, with the result that even a gift made as fair compensation to a contributing heir became subject to a forced heirship claim. That, the Court held, destroys the substantive fairness and solidarity between contributing and non-contributing heirs and negates the decedent’s intention to compensate the contributing heir.

The Court nevertheless ordered continued application rather than immediate invalidity, because voiding the provisions outright would have removed the legal basis for operating forced heirship at all. The precise scope of that continued application became the first issue in the 2026 Supreme Court decision.

3. What did the 2026 amendment to the Civil Act change?

On March 17, 2026, by Act No. 21454, the National Assembly amended the Civil Act. Notably, it did not rewrite Article 1118. It added a proviso to Article 1008 instead.

Article 1008 of the current Korean Civil Act now provides that where a coheir has received a gift or bequest from the decedent and the property received falls short of that heir’s share, the heir has a share only to the extent of the shortfall, provided that where the gift or bequest was made as compensation for having specially supported the decedent through cohabitation, nursing, or other means over a considerable period, or for having specially contributed to maintaining or increasing the decedent’s property, this shall not apply to the extent corresponding to the contribution.

The route by which this reaches forced heirship matters. Article 1118 still does not apply Article 1008-2, but it does still apply Article 1008. A compensatory gift excluded from the special benefit under the new proviso is therefore also excluded from the base estate on which forced heirship is calculated.

Three limits worth remembering

• The exclusion runs only to the extent corresponding to the contribution. The entire gift is not automatically removed.
• It covers both gifts and bequests, not only lifetime gifts.
• It requires special support over a considerable period or a special contribution to the estate, and the transfer must have been made as compensation for it.

4. Does the new law reach successions that opened before April 25, 2024?

Yes, where the case was pending in court on April 25, 2024. This is the core of Supreme Court of Korea, June 11, 2026, Case 2024Da222922.

The Court reasoned in two steps.

Step one — the continued application was narrower than it looked

The Court held that when the Constitutional Court ordered continued application despite having confirmed unconstitutionality, the purpose was to preserve the minimum legal basis for operating the forced heirship system, not to preserve, until the amending legislation took effect, the very state of affairs in which contribution and forced heirship were severed and the legitimate interests of contributing heirs were infringed.

It followed, the Court held, that the continued application extends only to the parts applying Article 1001 and Article 1010 on representation and Article 1008 on special benefits, and that the part of the former provision consisting of the failure to apply Article 1008-2 to forced heirship had been in a state of suspended application all along.

Step two — retroactive effect reaches parallel pending cases

Article 2 of the Addenda to the amended Civil Act provides that the new provision also applies where succession opens on or after April 25, 2024. Read literally, earlier successions fall outside it.

The Court accepted that the reach of remedial legislation is in principle for the legislature, but held that in light of the purpose of the constitutional nonconformity decision and the need to secure the effectiveness of concrete norm control, the retroactive effect extends at minimum to the case that gave rise to the decision and to cases in which the former provision was a premise of the judgment and which were pending in court at the time of the decision, even where no motion for a constitutional review referral had been filed. Such cases are therefore governed by the amended provision even though they fall outside the transitional rule in the Addenda.

The doctrine is not new. The Supreme Court of Korea reached the same conclusion in a military pension case, holding that retroactive effect reaches the originating case and cases pending in court in which the constitutionality of the former provision was at issue, so that the corrected provision applies even where the addenda contain no transitional rule (Supreme Court of Korea, September 29, 2011, Case 2008Du18885).

The same reasoning appears in a decision issued two weeks earlier. In Supreme Court of Korea, May 29, 2026, Case 2024Da208261, a succession that opened in 2018 was reversed and remanded on identical grounds.

5. Why did the Supreme Court of Korea reverse the lower court here?

The facts are straightforward. The decedent died on November 16, 2020, leaving six children. Four who received nothing sued the two who received bequests and lifetime gifts.

The Daegu High Court set the base estate for the forced heirship calculation at KRW 6,030,184,935 and the forced heirship ratio for each of the six heirs at one twelfth, being one half of the statutory one sixth share, producing an individual entitlement of KRW 502,515,411.

The disputed items were two apartments the appealing defendant had received from the decedent. The lower court treated them as lifetime gifts constituting a special benefit and added KRW 505,843,756, being the disposal price adjusted for inflation, to the base estate. Through the appeal, that defendant argued that no such gifts had been made and that he had lived with the decedent for a long period and paid hospital and nursing costs. On appeal to the Supreme Court, he argued in the alternative that even if the gifts were made, they were compensation for special support or contribution and should be excluded from the special benefit.

The Supreme Court held that this case fell within the category of cases pending in court at the time of the constitutional nonconformity decision in which the former provision was a premise of the judgment, so the amended provision had to be applied, and that the lower court’s judgment could no longer stand because it had proceeded on the premise that the former provision governed. Without reaching the remaining grounds of appeal, the Court reversed the part of the judgment against the defendant and remanded the case to the Daegu High Court.

The sequence of dates shows why the outcome turned on timing.

One caution is essential. The Supreme Court did not hold that the two apartments are excluded. It held that the wrong law had been applied. Whether the gifts were in fact compensatory, and if so what range corresponds to the contribution, is for the court on remand.

6. Does caregiving alone remove a gift from the calculation?

No. The fact of care is not enough. The transfer must be shown to carry the meaning of compensation, and the exclusion is capped at the range corresponding to the contribution.

The test was already set out before the amendment. The Supreme Court of Korea held that where a lifetime gift carries the meaning of compensation for an heir’s special support or contribution, such that treating the gift as an advancement of the heir’s share would instead undermine substantive fairness among the coheirs, the gift may be excluded from the special benefit to that extent. The Court directed that this be judged according to the parties’ intent, and where intent is unclear, by comprehensively considering the personal relationship between the decedent and the heir, the specific nature and degree of the support or contribution, the type and value of the property gifted and its proportion of the estate, and the assets, income, and standard of living of the decedent and the heir at the time of the gift (Supreme Court of Korea, March 17, 2022, Case 2021Da230083, 230090).

The same judgment carried a warning in the opposite direction. Given that forced heirship exists to protect the survivors’ livelihood against the decedent’s disposals, courts must judge carefully so as not to hollow out the system by casually excluding lifetime gifts from the special benefit.

Cases are therefore won on records rather than arguments: residence registration histories showing the period of cohabitation, medical and nursing records, bank statements showing who paid hospital and care costs, and contemporaneous statements or documents showing why the decedent transferred the property. These materials are not created after a dispute begins.

7. Has the remedy itself changed from property to money?

Yes. Article 1115(1) of the current Korean Civil Act provides that where a shortfall arises, the claimant may demand payment of the value of the property to the extent of the shortfall, and that interest accrues from the date the demand for payment is made. The pre-amendment text allowed a claim for return of the property, which courts applied as a rule of return in kind.

The lower court in this case ordered the transfer of registered shares in real property, a decision made under the earlier text. The change reduces the risk that a family estate ends up fragmented into small co-ownership shares among litigating siblings.

The ratios themselves are unchanged. Lineal descendants and the spouse take one half of the statutory share, and lineal ascendants one third. The subparagraph granting forced heirship to siblings was held unconstitutional and is deleted in the current Civil Act.

8. What does this mean for foreign nationals and families in the IFEZ?

Families connected to the Incheon Free Economic Zone (IFEZ) — covering Songdo International Business District, Cheongna International City, and Yeongjong International City — encounter this issue more often than they expect, for three reasons.

• Korean law may govern the succession. Where the decedent was a Korean national, or where Korean law otherwise applies, forced heirship is mandatory. A will that is perfectly valid abroad does not displace it.
• Cross-border caregiving is hard to document. A child who returned from overseas to care for a parent in Korea often has weaker Korean records — no local residence registration for part of the period, medical bills paid from a foreign account. Those gaps matter directly under the test above.
• Real property in the zone is the usual battleground. Apartments and commercial units in Songdo, Cheongna, and Yeongjong dominate these estates, and the shift from return in kind to payment of value changes how such disputes are structured and settled.

Foreign-invested families holding Korean real estate should treat caregiving records as estate planning documents, not as private matters.

9. What should you check right now in a pending case?

Start with the date. Whether the case was pending in court on April 25, 2024 determines whether the amended law applies.

1. Was the case pending on April 25, 2024? If it was at first instance, on appeal, or before the Supreme Court on that date, the amended provision may apply even though the succession opened earlier, and no motion for a constitutional review referral is required.
2. Did the succession open on or after April 25, 2024? Then the transitional rule in the Addenda applies directly.
3. Is the case already final? A concluded case falls outside the scope of retroactive effect recognized by the Supreme Court of Korea.
4. Are the compensatory-gift records assembled? Cohabitation, nursing, and cost-bearing records must be organized now so they can be presented to the court on remand or at the fact-finding instance.
5. When is the argument raised? Raise the compensatory-gift argument in the alternative before the fact-finding court rather than for the first time on appeal, because fact-finding belongs to the lower courts.

For claimants, the amendment is not a defeat. The proviso operates only to the extent corresponding to the contribution, and the Supreme Court of Korea has already cautioned against hollowing out the system. The contest now centers on the proportion between the actual care given and the size of the transfer.

Frequently asked questions

About the Author

Soyoung Park | Representative Attorney

Family Law, Inheritance, Construction & Real Estate Disputes

Judicial Research and Training Institute, 33rd Class

Korea University, Department of Law

Atlas Legal | Incheon Songdo, South Korea

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