Ensuring that final wishes come true

Founded in Beijing in 2013, the China Will Registration Center now has six branches across the country. Gao Erqiang / CHINA DAILY

The writing of wills is still relatively uncommon among Chinese today because the topic of death is considered taboo. However, perceptions are now changing as more and more people seek professional help in drafting these documents

Hu Yinyin wants her apartment in downtown Shanghai to be sold after she dies, but her husband and daughter are in for a rude shock — they won't be inheriting all the proceeds. In fact, most of the money will be going to a monk.

The 68-year-old woman has not told her family of this decision. With home prices in downtown Shanghai surging to 100,000 yuan ($16,000) per square meter, she is certain that her wish would cause much uproar in the household.

Hu said that her plan is to have the monk inherit most of the cash so that he could help her to continue caring for stray animals, including those she adopted. Her husband is the only other beneficiary and the amount he would be getting would be enough to last him the rest of his days in an elderly care center, she said. As her daughter is married and has her own apartment, Hu believes that she no longer needs financial assistance.

To ensure that her wish is fulfilled, Hu is planning to write a will, something that is not common among many Chinese because talking about death, much more planning for it, is a taboo in society.

Growing demand for wills

A staff member shows the database containing wills handled by the China Will Registration Center that were used in court to settle disputes. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY

But Hu admitted that she has little idea about writing wills, and has approached the China Will Registration Center, a nonprofit organization that helps the elderly to draft and store their wills, for help.

Founded in Beijing in 2013, the center has amassed more than 70,000 wills for about 100,000 elderly people since its establishment. The organization started expanding its footprint in 2015 and opened its sixth center in Shanghai earlier this month. Its other branches are located in places including Tianjin municipality, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, and Guangdong and Jiangsu provinces.

The services provided by the center are free to people aged 60 and above, though charges are levied for future amendments. The center also works with psychiatric organizations that perform mental health evaluations on elderly people so as to determine if they are of sound mind when they are drafting a will.

"We tested the water in Beijing first, and have upgraded our system many times over the years before we came to Shanghai," said Huang Haibo, executive director of the center's Shanghai branch.

"We wanted to ensure that everything was perfect before we opened our center in Shanghai as we foresaw a huge demand for such a service here."

This prediction was spot-on — more than 1,500 elderly residents made appointments to draft their wills just two weeks after the center opened in Shanghai's Changning district. Huang said that the center is now planning to open another branch in the city to cope with the growing demand. Staff from the Shanghai branch of the center also said that about 95 percent of the wills are related to property.

According to official statistics, Shanghai has the fastest-aging population among all Chinese cities. As of the end of 2016, the city had 4.58 million registered residents who were aged 60 and over, accounting for 31.6 percent of the registered population. Meanwhile, those aged 80 and above reached 796,600 as of 2016, accounting for 5.5 percent of the total.

Zhu Xiuqin, a lawyer with East & Concord Partners, said that she has also seen an increase in the number of Chinese clients consulting her about wills in the past few years. She pointed out that those who do not have substantial inheritances should consider approaching non-profit organizations such as the China Will Registration Center for assistance.

"I think such organizations that specialize in helping the elderly draft their wills is a good thing. After all, it would be a little costly for people to find a lawyer to do this if their inheritances are not very large," she said.

Changing perceptions

Chen Kai, the founder of the Shanghai branch, said that he is eager to dispel the social stigma about writing wills, pointing out that such a procedure helps to prevent conflicts between family members from happening after a person's death.

Chen said that the idea to promote a greater acceptance in writing wills came about in 2007 after he had a conversation with his colleagues at an Australian law firm.

"This incident left a deep impression in me because I realized that most of my Australian colleagues, who were only in their 30s and 40s, had already written their wills," he said.

"In contrast, most Chinese people don't write wills — they just pen their wishes in a note when they are near death and this causes problems later because what they wrote might not be legally binding," he added.

Chen returned to China in 2009 to work as a legal consultant at the China Ageing Development Foundation. This was when he revisited the idea of helping elderly Chinese write their wills. In 2013, he turned the idea into reality with the support of the foundation and the Beijing Sunny Senior Health Fund.

But perceptions have already started to change. According to the center, most of the people who sought help to write their wills during the first two years of its operations were those aged 70 and older. Today, people in their 60s make up the majority.

Gong Jinhua was one of the first clients of the Shanghai branch of the China Will Registration Center. The 68-year-old, who has a son and an adopted daughter, owns two apartments — one in Shanghai and one in Jiangxi province. She is planning to leave the apartment in Shanghai, which has a higher value, to her daughter. She expects her son to be against this decision.

"Even though I am her foster mother, I feel she is more dutiful than my son," she explained. "I learned from my elder sister that notarizing a will is a complicated issue so that is why I came to the center to learn more about it."

When asked why she does not view the topic of death as taboo, Gong said: "Everyone will get old and die someday. Instead of waiting till the last minute, why not make preparations in advance?"

Zhao Yuqin, 65, registered her will this year with the center's branch in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, because she wants her only son to inherit her wealth without encountering any problems.

There's a common belief among the Chinese that a son should inherit his parent's wealth. But the reality is more complex. In China, if someone dies without a will, their spouse, parents and children can all stake a claim on the assets left behind.

In Zhao's case, her son would need to provide the death certificates of his grandparents. Zhao's husband would also need to state in a written document his intention to relinquish his right to the property.

"I was concerned in the beginning, since it's taboo for someone to write a will," Zhao said.

"But I thought it through and decided to do it anyway. I told my son that what I was doing would make things less of a hassle for him."

xingyi@chinadaily.com.cn