[Getty Images Bank]
[Getty Images Bank]

A man who lived with and cared for his adoptive parents for 20 years has shared his story of being sued by his sisters, who are demanding he vacate the family home and pay two decades of back rent now that their parents have died.

The man's case, identified only as A, was introduced Monday on YTN Radio's legal advice program "Jo In-seop Lawyer's Consultation."

A was abandoned by his biological parents as a newborn and raised as the youngest child — and only son — of a couple who had three daughters. It was not until college that a relative told him he was not the couple's biological child and that his parents had registered him with a birth certificate rather than an adoption filing.

The revelation came as a shock, but his parents reassured him, saying they had never once thought of him as anything other than their own son. His sisters all married and started their own families, while A divorced in his 30s and went on to live with his parents for the next 20 years.

Family tensions erupted after his father died three years ago, followed by his mother last year.

After the funeral, the sisters told A — who had been living in the home registered in their parents' names — to vacate the property.

When A asked for more time, he was soon served with a lawsuit seeking a legal declaration that he was not the biological child of his parents. The suit asked a court to formally confirm the absence of a biological parent-child relationship.

The sisters went further, arguing that A owed rent for the 20 years he had lived in the home free of charge.

"It seems my sisters never thought of me as a real brother," A said. "They say that because I am not a biological child, I cannot inherit our parents' estate." He added: "I grew up receiving my parents' love my whole life, and now being told I am not family feels like losing them a second time. I want to know whether I really have to pay rent for the 20 years I lived there."

Attorney Jo Yun-yong of Shinsegae Law said that under Korean law, a parent-child relationship is established either through biological birth or adoption. "A's parents appear to have filed a birth registration rather than an adoption registration," Jo said. "If they filed the birth registration with the intent to adopt and raised him as their own child, the adoption may be recognized as legally valid even though the birth registration was false."

Jo added that because a birth registration was filed, terminating the legal parent-child relationship would require a court proceeding to confirm the absence of a biological relationship. "However, for such a claim to succeed, grounds for judicial dissolution of adoption must be established — such as abuse, abandonment or serious harm to the child's welfare by the adoptive parents, or severely unjust treatment of the adoptee," he said.

"Based on the facts presented, it is difficult to see grounds for judicial dissolution of adoption, so the claim is unlikely to succeed," Jo said. He added that A should be recognized as an adoptive child with inheritance rights over his parents' estate and could assert a statutory share of one-quarter as a co-heir alongside his sisters.

Jo also advised that if the parties cannot reach an agreement, A could file a petition for a court-supervised division of the inherited estate.

On the sisters' demand for 20 years of back rent, Jo said that once the parents died, the home registered in their names became jointly owned by all co-heirs, meaning A's continued sole and rent-free occupation could pose a legal problem. "He should consider either securing a new residence or reaching an agreement with his sisters to pay a reasonable usage fee," Jo said.

However, Jo noted that because the parents appeared to have permitted A to live there rent-free during their lifetimes, "he would likely have no obligation to pay back rent retroactively for the period he lived there while his parents were still alive."


yeonjoo7@heraldcorp.com