Lawyer to manage NK residents’ assets in South

A local court ordered a South Korean lawyer Friday to manage the assets of North Korean residents that were bequeathed to them by a deceased family member who lived in the South.

The Seoul Family Court dismissed a request from a surviving South Korean family member for a trial to decide if she is eligible to take care of the assets on behalf of the inheritors.

“It is proper to have a lawyer in a neutral position appointed to manage the assets because the family member has her own interests involved,” said the presiding judge.

“The measure that has a third party manage assets in the South that belong to North Korean residents enables efficient management as well as preventing the assets from being appropriated.”

According to a special act on family relations and inheritances between North and South Korean residents enacted in May, any assets a North Korean resident inherits from a relative in the South must be protected by a person appointed by the court.

This is the first time that the court has appointed such a person, since the law was enacted.

The 77-year-old family member surnamed Yoon, who was born in the North, crossed the border with her father after the Korean War broke out while her mother and five siblings remained behind.

She was added to her father’s family register in the South in 1957. He later remarried and had four more children, who were also registered.

However, an argument between Yoon and her step-siblings broke out in 2008, 20 years after their father died, when his assets only went to the children living in the South.

Yoon got in contact with four of her surviving siblings in the North and filed a suit requesting confirmation of the relations between them and her late father. She consequently received a letter of attorney to manage the inherited assets of her siblings in the North.

Yoon filed another suit last year requesting the ownership of part of her father’s assets be transferred from her step-siblings to her siblings in the North. She then requested a trial to let her manage the assets. <The Korea Times/Kim Bo-eun>