13 April 2021
The Supreme Court rendered the 109-Tai-Shang-2868 Decision of November 19, 2020 (hereinafter, the “Decision”), holding that a complaint filed by the creditor to cancel the registration of the debtor’s real estate ownership transfer requires that a third party should be the defendant, and no claim may be asserted against the debtor concurrently.
According to the fact underlying this Decision, the Appellee asserted that he and A, the Appellant’s father, are both B’s children. Since Appellants X and Y went to a private notary public with B, who was feeble-minded with cognitive deficits, to make a notarized will (hereinafter, the “Will at Issue”), designating all of the lands in B’s name to be inherited by X alone before they were distributed to Appellants Y and Z. After B died, X carried out the Will at Issue by registering the ownership transfer of two parcels of land under his name on the ground of inheritance before registering the title of the lands at issue to Y and Z, respectively, for purposes of sales (hereinafter, the “Transfer Registration of the Sales at Issue”). The Will at Issue was invalidated by a final court decision in another lawsuit. In addition, since the sale of the lands at issue among the Appellants involved a collusive and fraudulent indication of intent, and the Transfer Registration of the Sales at Issuee was an unauthorized disposal, they were both invalid. Under Article 767, Paragraph 1 and Article 821 of the Civil Code, a court decision was sought to compel the Appellants to cancel the Transfer Registration of the Sales at Issue and register the ownership under the name of X again, and to compel X to cancel the inheritance transfer registration of the lands at issue and register the lands at issue under the common ownership of the Appellee and A.
According to the Decision, in a lawsuit brought by the creditor to cancel a transfer registration on the ground that the debtor’s registration of property ownership transfer to a third party is invalid only requires that the third party should be the defendant, and no claim may be asserted against the debtor concurrently.
It was further indicated in the Decision that since the fact that the rights holders for the transfer registration of the lands at issue due to sales were Y and Z was determined by the original trial court, the Appellee certainly could not request X, not a registration rights holder, to cancel the registration. Failing to consider this, the original trial court was certainly questionable when ordering X to cancel such registration. Therefore, the appeal arguments criticizing such aspect of the original decision for violation of laws and regulations and requesting its reversal are not groundless.
For further information, please contact:
Frank Sun, Lee Tsai & Partners
lawtec@leetsai.com
