Koo Jun-yup and the late Seo Hee-won [Instagram]
Koo Jun-yup and the late Seo Hee-won [Instagram]

Wang Xiaofei, the ex-husband of the late Taiwanese actor Seo Hee-won, has announced that Korean actor Koo Jun-yup is legally entitled to one-third of her estate.

A representative for Wang issued an official statement Wednesday, pushing back against recent media reports about the inheritance dispute, according to Taiwanese outlet ET Today and other local media.

Earlier, a Taiwanese media outlet had reported that Wang was continuing to service a mortgage on the upscale apartment in Taipei's Xinyi District where Seo had lived, and that Koo had no intention of claiming his share of the inheritance.

Wang's representative said his side had applied to a court to appoint a special guardian to protect the inheritance rights of Seo's two minor children, and that a court-designated attorney is currently handling the estate division and related procedures. Seo and Wang have two elementary school-age children together.

The representative said Seo's two minor children will inherit two-thirds of the estate, and that a dedicated trust account has been opened to manage those assets.

On the question of Koo's share, the representative said the one-third of the estate Koo is legally entitled to inherit "will be disposed of according to his own wishes and financial plans, and we fully respect his choice."

After Seo's death, Koo said publicly that because the estate represented what she had built through her own hard work, he intended to hand over his rights to her mother.

Wang's side also dismissed as groundless reports that the Taipei property faced foreclosure or that mortgage payments had gone unpaid. The representative said Wang has been covering the mortgage payments on behalf of the children and stressed that "there is absolutely no situation in which the property will be put up for auction."

Regarding claims by Seo's mother that she could be forced out of the home, the representative said Wang had never asked her to vacate and agreed that she could continue living there with the two children.

The representative added that reckless speculation and misinformation were causing the bereaved family significant emotional distress, urging media to "refrain from unverified reporting and conjecture."

Local media estimate the total value of Seo's estate — including a site near the National Museum of Fine Arts and a penthouse she owned, as well as assets secured during her divorce from Wang — at a minimum of 1 billion New Taiwan dollars (about 46 billion won).


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