Hwawoo publishes practical guide to inheritance and asset succession

Law firm Hwawoo announced Friday the publication of a practical guide titled "So That Family Doesn't Become Strangers," a comprehensive handbook covering inheritance, gifting and retirement planning for an era of large-scale asset transfers among the elderly.

As the share of elderly people among the deceased rises rapidly, inheritance has moved beyond a concern for a select few wealthy families and become a real challenge that every household in Korean society must confront.

The book breaks down asset succession — spanning inheritance, gifting and trusts — in accessible terms for general readers. It was co-authored by Yang So-ra, an inheritance and trust specialist at Hwawoo who has handled numerous succession cases involving chaebol families and testamentary substitute trusts at financial institutions, and by Bae Jeong-sik and Park Hyeon-jeong, senior specialist advisers at Hwawoo's asset management center, who pioneered the domestic trust market by launching the country's first testamentary substitute trust at Hana Bank.

The book examines the full range of issues families face today, from basic tools such as statutory inheritance and wills to trust-based asset management, cross-border succession, business succession, insurance-claim trusts, property management in preparation for dementia, retirement planning for single-person households, and planned charitable giving.

Rather than prescribing a single system as the right answer, the book walks readers through the best options for their specific family circumstances — asset size, relationships and situation — using detailed case studies. It draws clear distinctions between situations that call for a will and those that call for a trust, and offers practical guidance from pre-death preparation through post-inheritance procedures. Parents learn how to leave their wishes properly documented; adult children learn when and how to help their parents prepare for old age and eventual succession — all in the service of keeping families together.

Yang leads both the asset dispute team and the family litigation team at Hwawoo's asset management center, and has handled a wide range of inheritance litigation and advisory work, including will execution, forced-share restitution, estate division and adult guardianship for listed-company owner families and high-net-worth individuals. Co-authors Bae and Park are among the country's foremost trust practitioners, having conducted tens of thousands of customer consultations in the financial sector and developed a deep understanding of inheritance as it plays out in practice.

"This book is a practical guide for those who feel lost when it comes to inheritance, trusts and estate planning," Yang said. "I hope readers come to appreciate the importance of settling their affairs through the various cases presented, and make wise decisions as a result."

Bae and Park added that they recommend the book to anyone seeking to protect their own and their family's assets — parents and children thinking through smooth, dispute-free succession, single-person households planning for retirement, and industry practitioners alike.

Lee Myeong-su, managing partner of Hwawoo, said inheritance is no longer a concern limited to a wealthy few but a reality every family in Korean society must face. "Through this publication, Hwawoo aims to provide meaningful help so that our customers can protect both their assets and their relationships across generations," he said.

Meanwhile, Hwawoo has been on a steep upward trajectory not only in inheritance and asset management but across corporate legal services more broadly. Its mergers and acquisitions team, recently bolstered by the recruitment of a large cohort of veteran specialists, has been building a stronger presence in the capital markets legal advisory space by successfully leading high-profile deals in management-rights disputes, complex restructurings and cross-border transactions.