On May 21, 2026, China’s Supreme People’s Court (SPC) released five typical cases regarding the estate administrator system under the Civil Code, focusing on practical difficulties such as determining estate administrators, false waiver of inheritance, and settlement of estate management expenses.
The Inheritance Book of the Civil Code added the estate administrator system on the basis of the original Inheritance Law, systematically stipulating the generation methods, statutory duties, and civil liabilities of estate administrators, filling the gap in estate management rules.
In Case 2 released this time, after Yang passed away, his parents and daughter waived inheritance in writing, but actually received and disposed of his funeral expenses, pensions, and old-age insurance balance of more than 200,000 yuan, and promised to pay debts and paid 50,000 yuan in another case. The court ruled that the heirs denied their intention to waive inheritance through actual behaviors, and it did not belong to the situation where "all heirs waive inheritance", rejecting the creditor's application to designate the civil affairs department as the estate administrator.
“The appointment of civil affairs departments as default estate administrators is strictly a public policy safety net of last resort, applicable only when no eligible heirs exist or when all heirs legitimately renounce their claims”, stated Judge Chen Yifang, Director of the SPC’s First Civil Division, during a press briefing. “If an heir executes a superficial waiver while maintaining actual possession of the assets to evade creditors, such a waiver is null and void”.
Photo by Sasun Bughdaryan on Unsplash
Contributors: CJO Staff Contributors Team
