A Japanese professor accepted a visiting assignment with a university in New York City. As part of his arrangements, he deposited about $100,000 in cash in a bank there, which for sake of discussion I’ll call Citibank.

Unfortunately, while there, he died. As is common in Japan, he had no will, so he died intestate, subject to the inheritance laws of Japan. His widow sought to have the cash deposit turned over to her. Citibank, quite naturally, asked for written authorization from the executor of the professor’s estate.

That request was of course normal under New York State law. However, it presented an issue not only of conflict of laws, but of customs and expectations. Distribution to heirs in Japan is governed by Japanese law. In Japan, where there is no will, there is no executor! The system is different. The widow is caught in a puzzle. She cannot get authorization since there is no executor. There is no provision for a court’s naming an executor in such a situation. How does one explain this to Citibank?

This is a true story, with a few facts changed, that one of my colleagues in my office told me the other day and it is a not uncommon problem in Japan. Japanese lawyers, many of whom have no international experience and no languages other than Japanese, often refer such matters to us when they face foreign problems.

According to Japanese law, inheritance goes in shares to those recorded in the decedent’s koseki or family register. Family registers in Japan are quite complete and go back for generations, so it is quite possible to determine relationships with a high degree of accuracy. More difficult, however, is locating those persons. While distribution to immediate family such as spouse and children under fairly clear rules is the norm, many situations nonetheless may require a release from other potentially interested parties, even though quite remote. Frankly, I am very skeptical about this system, which you will see in future posts. You can see where this is going – and why there are so many disputed estate distributions in Japan.

Do you think it might have been a good idea for the professor to make a will designating an executor before he went abroad? What about naming a possible guardian for minor children? What if the widow were not a Japanese national and were not included in the family koseki? There were other complications, but these few examples show how lack of planning can cause much later work for lawyers. That all could have been avoided, and the widow would have benefited greatly, if the professor had prepared some simple documentation before his trip.