What if? No. 392026-10-22

A will names one heir; Taiwan's deeds name them all. Ask Evergreen

Chang Yung-fa's sealed will left everything to one son, and Taiwan's Supreme Court upheld it in 2024. On 22 October his own foundation told the Taipei District Court the will is void, added all seven heirs as defendants, and heard that the estate's land is registered in the joint names of all seven. Judgment on its NT$1 billion claim is set for 30 November. In Singapore the land would sit in one name: the executor's.

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The Taiwan Taipei District Court building in Taipei, where the Chang Yung-fa Foundation's NT$1 billion claim against the Evergreen founder's estate closed argument on 22 October 2026Yu tptw · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

The news, this week

A founder's foundation claims NT$1 billion from his executors, and the Taipei court sets judgment for 30 November

On 22 October 2026 the Taipei District Court closed argument in the Chang Yung-fa Foundation's suit over the estate of Evergreen's founder and set judgment for 11 a.m. on 30 November. The foundation sued in March 2026, claiming NT$1 billion from the four executors, Ko Li-ching, Tai Chin-chuan, Liu Meng-fen and Wu Chieh-yuan. It says Chang's public statements in 2011 and 2012, through press conferences, his memoir and recordings, promised his estate to the foundation as a gift upon death.

The foundation sues all seven heirs and calls the will void, two years after the Supreme Court upheld it

At the hearing the foundation amended its claim. It added all seven heirs as defendants: the sons Chang Kuo-hua, Chang Kuo-ming and Chang Kuo-cheng; Cheng Ming-yi and Cheng Ming-wei, children of the late eldest daughter; and the second wife Lee Yu-mei and her son Chang Kuo-wei. It also argued that the will is invalid. The executors' counsel opposed the amendment, because the will has been finally held valid. Counsel for Lee Yu-mei and Chang Kuo-wei said the will, which leaves everything to Chang Kuo-wei, is the founder's last wish and revoked any earlier promise.

Executors hold NT$16.15 billion they cannot share out, while about NT$80 billion overseas has never arrived

The foundation's counsel told the court that Chang had already given his children more than NT$70 billion in his lifetime; the reports differ on whether that is each or in total. The executors' counsel said the estate's real property has been registered in the joint names of the seven heirs, while the deposits and shares await the estate-division suit. Knews reports that NT$16.15 billion of domestic estate money sits in the executors' joint account, and that about NT$80 billion of overseas assets, including dividends on shares in Evergreen International (Panama) and Evergreen Marine (Hong Kong), has never been remitted to it. Chang died on 20 January 2016.

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The knot

A father's will picks one son, yet the land register in Taipei lists seven names ten years on

The will chose one son. The land registry lists seven names. Both are correct under Taiwanese law, and the gap between them is the story of this estate.

Taiwan makes every heir a joint owner until division, so the children the will left out still hold a claim

A will in Taiwan does not move property out of the heirs' hands. Until the estate is divided, all the heirs jointly own the whole of it (Civil Code article 1151), and any of them may demand division at any time (article 1164). The children the will left out are still heirs, holding a reserved share they can enforce by cutting back the gift to Chang Kuo-wei (article 1225). Until that arithmetic is done, nobody holds a defined share of anything.

One heir can register land for all seven; a year unregistered starts a 15-year clock to auction

The land register follows the same rule. Any one heir may register an inheritance for all of them (Land Act article 73), and one heir may register the land in joint ownership for everyone's benefit; registering defined shares needs every heir's consent (Land Registration Rules article 120). Land left unregistered for a year is listed for management and, fifteen years later, sold by the National Property Administration (article 73-1). Who filed this registration and why is not public; avoiding that clock is our inference.

Four executors hold the money, seven heirs share the deeds, and the foundation enters a suit it never joined

The executors manage the estate and the heirs may not dispose of it meanwhile (articles 1215 and 1216). So ten years after the death, the four executors hold the money, the seven heirs share the deeds, the division suit holds the shares, and the foundation now asks the court to treat the will as void. A final judgment binds the parties and their successors (Code of Civil Procedure article 401); the foundation was not a party to the will suit, which is the opening it is using. Whether the court lets it through is what 30 November decides.

What if it had been Singapore?

In Singapore the executor, not the heirs, takes the land onto the register by transmission and then transfers it straight to the person the will names, so a child the will leaves out never appears on the title and has no reserved share to hold the transfer up.

Taiwan's own law governs a Taiwanese founder's land, so the Singapore answer covers only a founder domiciled there

One limit first. This is Taiwanese land, owned by a Taiwanese founder, and Singapore law would not touch it: Taiwan applies its own succession law, reserved share included, to a Taiwanese national's estate, and land is registered under the law of the place where it lies. The question is what Singapore law does with the same will, left by a founder domiciled here, over land registered here. The facts come from three newspaper reports of a hearing; no judgment, register extract or court file is public, and we do not know who filed the joint registration.

In Singapore the executor alone goes on the land register, holding the land in trust for those the law entitles

Start with the register. Under Singapore's Land Titles Act 1993, read on 22 October 2026, the personal representative applies to be registered as proprietor by transmission (section 107(1)). Anyone else claiming the land is registered only if a transfer from the personal representative is not reasonably practicable (section 107(2)). Once registered, the land vests in the personal representative, who holds it in trust for the persons entitled by law and is treated as the absolute proprietor for any dealing (section 113). The heirs as a group never appear on the folio.

With the grant in hand, a Singapore executor transfers the building straight to the son the will names, in one step

Then the transfer. On production of the grant of probate, the Registrar may register a transfer by the personal representative made under a devise in the will, without a separate transmission (section 108). If there are several executors, all of those living must sign (section 109). A Singapore will that leaves a building to one son therefore moves it along a straight line: executor, grant, transfer to the son. There is no stage at which the founder's other children co-own it.

Singapore gives left-out children no forced share, only a narrow maintenance claim that never puts a name on the deeds

That line stays straight because no one can stop it on a reserved share. A non-Muslim domiciled in Singapore can leave his estate to one child; the other children hold no forced share to enforce against the gift. The Inheritance (Family Provision) Act 1966 allows a maintenance claim only by a narrow class of dependants, such as an unmarried or disabled daughter or an infant son, out of the net estate. A claim like the foundation's, that a public pledge was a binding gift, would be a claim against the executor, as our commentary of 2 September explained; it would not put a stranger's name on the deeds.

Singapore still allows a probate fight, but a lifetime trust would have moved the overseas shares out first

Singapore does not remove the delay itself. A will can be challenged in a probate action, and a caveat can stop a grant while it runs. What it removes is the middle state Evergreen is stuck in: an estate held by four executors, registered to seven heirs and divisible by a court, all at the same time. And the overseas holdings now outside the executors' account are the assets a lifetime trust would have taken out of the estate altogether, on the day the founder signed it.

A daughter asks three calm questions over tea and learns who the executor is before anyone needs to know

For the reader whose parent has made a will, three questions can be asked without accusing anyone. Who is named as executor, and do they know it? Does any property sit in a country where the law gives children a share the will cannot remove? And is the property your parent most wants to pass on registered in a place where the will can move it in one step? Wanting to know your position is stewardship, not greed.

Chang Kuo-wei, the son the will names — a will upheld in 2024, and land registered to him jointly with six other heirs, with no defined share until division

The six other heirs — joint owners on the register, with reserved-share claims against the gift to Chang Kuo-wei still being worked out in the division suit

The Chang Yung-fa Foundation — a NT$1 billion claim, now pleaded against all seven heirs and against the will itself; judgment on 30 November 2026

The four executors — NT$16.15 billion in a joint account they manage but cannot distribute, and about NT$80 billion of overseas assets reported never to have reached it

The same will in Singapore — the executor registered by transmission, then a single transfer to the named son on the grant; no other child on the title and no reserved share to enforce

The reader whose parent has made a will — three questions: who is executor, where the property sits, and whether the will can move it in one step

A counterfactual, not advice. The verified machinery is on the Singapore page; where your family stands is the briefing.

From the case files: The full Evergreen file: ten years of rulings, from the sealed will to the executors' account

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