An estate is simply the legal term given to the net worth a person has after they die. There's a legal process that allocates the dead person's resources according to various factors. Generally a person's debts will be satisfied first. Then whatever's left gets divided according to the person's will, if any. If there is no will, a judge will divide assets up amongst surviving relatives. If there is nothing left after satisfying debts, then heirs get nothing. If there is no will and no heirs, the estate goes to the state.
Typically if a person's net worth is negative, debts are not passed on to heirs, leaving creditors to sue for relief. Again, jurisdictions vary, and I would expect there are many other factors at play in a country like Japan where keeping the family's social standing intact may be worth paying off those the deceased wronged instead of dragging the dead person's dirty laundry through the court system even if there's no chance of winning.
Jurisdictions vary, but I would imagine in a case such as the aforementioned, the state wouldn't take the whole estate, only part, after debts are satisfied.
A phenomenal article on this aspect of the "what happens after you die" question is this one:
The creditors have to sue the estate, not the relatives, and if the estate is empty, they are not going to get anything. If they sued the relatives, the suit would be thrown out rather quickly. Heirs are not liable for the deceased's debts. They can choose to, and sometimes do, satisfy them for their own reasons, but there is no way a creditor can force them to do that any more than they can force a random person.
Unless Japan has some unorthodox laws that make relatives of successful suicides liable for their debts to Tokyo Metro?
> The creditors have to sue the estate, not the relatives, and if the estate is empty, they are not going to get anything. If they sued the relatives, the suit would be thrown out rather quickly. Heirs are not liable for the deceased's debts.
That is definitely the case in the US, but I would hesitate before assuming it's that way everywhere else in the world.
I do know that there are cases in Japan where the deceased parents of suicides have had to pay compensation for the externalities of the suicide, in particular for the decreased property value of the apartment that they committed suicide in. I don't know how or why they had to do this, just that it is a thing that happens.
That's still the same issue, people confounding estate and family members, and it gets written that way because it elicits emotional response, not necessarily because it were true.
It looks like in principle it is the same as the English Common Law or the Napoleonic or Germanic law:
"[T]here are two ways for successors to consent how to inherit: simple consent (tanjun-syonin) and limited consent (gentei-syonin). Simple consent is to accept the whole inheritance, including debts and assets. Limited consent is to accept debts with a limitation up to the value of the assets."
In fact I doubt there is a legal system in existence that doesn't follow this principle. It would be ripe for abuse, as everybody would be getting loans secured on the wealth of their rich relatives.
> That's still the same issue, people confounding estate and family members, and it gets written that way because it elicits emotional response, not necessarily because it were true.
The article I linked was pretty clear in that the apartment owners sued the family, not the estate.
Think about it, how much is a college kid going to have in his estate? They have to sue the family, because they're the only ones that can make good.
I get virtually all of my reading material from HN or TheBrowser or ReadThisThing. I then save it to Pocket, getting back to it days or weeks later. I'm so far behind the curve that it doesn't make sense for me to submit anything.
Typically if a person's net worth is negative, debts are not passed on to heirs, leaving creditors to sue for relief. Again, jurisdictions vary, and I would expect there are many other factors at play in a country like Japan where keeping the family's social standing intact may be worth paying off those the deceased wronged instead of dragging the dead person's dirty laundry through the court system even if there's no chance of winning.
Jurisdictions vary, but I would imagine in a case such as the aforementioned, the state wouldn't take the whole estate, only part, after debts are satisfied.
A phenomenal article on this aspect of the "what happens after you die" question is this one:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/nyregion/dying-alone-in-ne...