Hi, i hope anyone can help me, my sister was married with Taiwanese and become Taiwanese citizen.
Few days ago her husband passed away, and my sister’s brother in law wants to delete his brother name (my sister’s Husband) from the household registration and make him as the one who will take care the family (my sister and her children).
She wants to leave Taiwan and bring the children along with her, but my sister’s brother in law told her that she can’t bring them.
Please advise is it possible for my sister to get full custody of her children.
Do we need a lawyer for this?
[quote=“skybluish”]Hi, i hope anyone can help me, my sister was married with Taiwanese and become Taiwanese citizen.
Few days ago her husband passed away, and my sister’s brother in law wants to delete his brother name (my sister’s Husband) from the household registration and make him as the one who will take care the family (my sister and her children).
She wants to leave Taiwan and bring the children along with her, but my sister’s brother in law told her that she can’t bring them.
Please advise is it possible for my sister to get the full custody of her children.
Do we need a lawyer for this?
Thank you[/quote]
Your sister ALREADY has full custody of her children and is a Taiwanese citizen. I don’t think it is at all likely that there’s a court in the land that would take custody of her children against her will. Not even the Taiwanese justice system is as abhorrent as that.
I think it is more likely that the brother-in-law simply WANTS the kids and is simply trying to trick your sister.
If he’s prepared to do that, there is the possibility that he might try to abduct the children, though. I think that is what your sister should be more concerned about. I don’t think she needs a lawyer at this stage, but she should DEFINITELY talk to one of the organizations set up for foreign spouses.
The Foreign Spouse Care and Guidance Fund 外籍配偶照顧輔導基金 is one of these organizations. I can’t find the number right now, sorry.
Ditto to what Sandman said. The biggest risk for your sister is abduction of the children. Even though she of course has defacto custody, if the brother-in-law takes the children (even if it is by force- child snatching is sadly quite acceptable according to the “Taiwanese Way” and having been on the receiving end of that I know how terrible it is), the police and courts may well do nothing about it.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I am getting the feeling that your sister is a “mail-order bride” type from SE Asia, is this right ?
If she has passports for the children, then she is free to leave Taiwan with them. And as a Taiwanese Citizen, she surely should be able to obtain passports without the permission of her husband’s family.
I would suggest that she takes her children out of Taiwan as soon as possible, because if things go wrong for her in Taiwan then she is unlikely to find anyone who is going to help her, including the police and courts. In the meantime, please tell her to be very careful and keep an eye around her at all times.
I was about to say the same thing: take a long holiday, with the kids. Depending on your/her home country, The Law may choose to turn a blind eye to whatever the brother-in-law does. The only problem with leaving the country is that, if the BiL decides to escalate this, it will be viewed as “running away”. She should therefore plan to make this a permanent holiday if necessary.
Despite Sandman’s (relatively) upbeat assessment, I’ve heard too many horror stories about how Taiwanese law works in practice (as opposed to how it’s written). If BiL knows the right people, bad stuff could happen.
@Sandman and Tempogain, thank you very much for your advice, I will tell my sister to contact them
@pgdaddy1 and Finley, my sister is not the mail order bride, she met her husband 13 years ago, when she studied in Taiwan, she got married after graduation and become a housewife, she dedicated all her time for her family, she has 3 kids now (9, 2 and 1 year old) she never work and all her friends have left Taiwan, so I can say that she doesn’t have any friend.
Actually, before this incident happened, she has bought flight tickets to Singapore for holiday end of this July to end of August, since it’s school holiday there. It’s also across her mind to just run away since she has the tickets already, but we’re afraid that the BIL’s brother will escalate this and my sister has to surrender her children.
I’m so desperate right now, I want to go to Taiwan but I don’t know how to get to Hsinchu and I totally can’t speak Chinese, every time I went there, my late BIL will pick me up from the airport since my sister can’t drive and she’s busy taking care of her children and her husband funeral, I don’t think the BIL’s brother will help to pick me up, is it safe for a lady to go to Hsinchu alone by Taxi?
I’m truly grateful for all your advice, I think we should find a lawyer just in case
Well, looking on the bright side, your BIL might have perfectly honourable intentions. Only your sister knows for sure.
It baffles me a bit that your sister can’t pick you up. After 13 years here, she presumably has some grasp of Chinese and can find her way around … unless she’s been literally locked in the house all that time. A toddler and a baby is a handful, but they’re not going to prevent you hopping in a taxi to meet your sister at the airport or train station.
Anyway, Taiwan (including the taxis) is perfectly safe. When you arrive here, your best bet would be to take a taxi to the High Speed Rail station (TaoYuan), and HsinChu is one stop away (~15 mins). You then take another taxi to your sister’s house (assuming she can’t meet you at HsinChu HSR) which would be another 20 minutes at most. At the HSR and at the airport, there will be an English speaker who can help you. You can also take a business card so that you can call a taxi for the return journey.
At this stage, a lawyer will just take your money and do nothing useful. Find out exactly what’s going on first. Your sister will not “have to surrender her children”. She might choose to do so under pressure, but unless she has failed to keep her paperwork in order (were their births properly registered? Is she documented as the mother? were they legally married in Taiwan?), kidnapping is still kidnapping. There is nothing in the law that makes it illegal to be a widow. Like I said, the law here might sometimes choose to turn a blind eye to “private family arrangements”, but not to abduction.
Finding a lawyer is a good idea I think. But get all your plans in place now. Getting a taxi from the designated areas at the airport or train station is safe and Taiwan generally is a safe place.
@finley, I don’t think he has any good intentions since he told my sister if my sister wants to go overseas or come to visit me in Singapore, she can’t bring her children along with her (fortunately, he doesn’t know that my sister had plan to go to Singapore) and they were legally married and she documented as the mother of her 3 kids, too bad my sister is really is a stay at home mom.
@headhonchoII, yeah, I think finding a lawyer is a good idea.
Thanks for your advice, I have decided to go to Taiwan.
skybluish, I don’t see how a lawyer is necessary. There is no legal argument here, she has the right to sole custody of the children and has the right to remove them from Taiwan.
Does she have passports for the children ? If so, then she can leave Taiwan with the children now. And if not, what is stopping her getting them ? She’s a Taiwan citizen, she’s and her children are all on the family register (and I don’t see how her BIL can remove her without her permission), so if she has lost any documents then she should be able to obtain all of the necessary documents from the relevant government office.
The Bureau of Consular Affairs website http://www.boca.gov.tw tells you what documents are required, I summarise here:
A completed passport application form
Birth certificates of children
The parents’ marriage certificate
The ROC passport of one of the two parents
Two identical passport photos of the baby (45x35 mm or 1.77x1.38 inches, color)
So there should be no problem at all for her, unless there is something else that you are not telling us ? By all means travel to Taiwan to give her support and help her with the kids on the flight. But there is no legal problem. The only thing she needs to worry about is the BIL trying something underhand; and as long as she takes care there then she will be fine. It’s simply a matter of her getting the hell out of Taiwan with the children, as soon as possible.
@pgdaddy1, they have passport, so, it’s not the problem, she’s planning to leave Taiwan with her kids after her husband funeral, but what I’m afraid of is like Finley said about how Taiwanese law works in practice and bad stuff could happen or he probably will trying something underhand like you said. He already told my sister to give him the authority for all his brother properties as most of it under her husband and BIL’s name.
Thanks for your good information, I really appreciate it, this made me feel relieved, I’ll go to Taiwan tomorrow.
Shes a Taiwanese citizen, she doesnt have to sign anything of her husband’s over to anyone. THey are hers as the surviving wife. Sounds like someone is trying to push one over on her. She may be inheriting property or something of value ?
IF she has got nothing of value from her husband (house, etc) and wants to leave Taiwan, then I suggest take her kids away to Singapore (if thats where shes from) and let them stay with family and she can return to Taiwan for the funeral (but bring some muscle with her in case the BIL wants to get ugly) without the kids, to attend the funeral. JUst tell the husbands family that the kids will be returning often to Taiwan. Placate their concerns. They are afraid they will never see them again.
At the very least get in touch with the organizations as stated. They will help her. Taiwanese for the most part are not criminal. But the BIL wants to get either the husbands children or his property.
Lets say hes a good guy and feels an obligation to his brother to “legally” be responsible for the children (in case you should remarry) and is doing this for that reason. IF thats the case he will not want to remove the children from you. However, if you are going to leave the country with the kids, it may be that he is being pushed by the rest of the family to stop this and keep the kids in the country. Children are “property” that is fought over tooth and claw in Taiwan. IF you plan to leave and they feel this , they will do anything and everything to stop this. The deceased husbands family may gang up and forcibly remove the children from her. This is a very distinct possibility.
But at any case, she should get herself in touch right away with the organizations as listed and you should get over there to help her if you can.
Aha! Here it is. It would be very easy to give up all properties and claim to any inheritance in exchange for freedom, no wonder the guy is wielding the kids as barganing chips. This looks bad. Wonder how the debt situation is. In Taiwan, kids inherit the debts unless they renounce to them. They may get assets and debts, all bundled up.
Sorry for the depressing point of view, but I have also seen awful cases, one after the other, especially in cases such as your sister where the woman is effectively isolated at home. It is a very common situation, and family imposition is hard to fight.
Hurry here ASAP and if you can bring more male family members the better. Talk to the Foreign Spouse fund and hopefully they can also send someone over, too.
[quote=“skybluish”]He already told my sister to give him the authority for all his brother properties as most of it under her husband and BIL’s name.
[/quote]
He has no right to anything that belonged to her husband. You should tell her under no circumstance should she sign anything with this parasitical brother in law. It must be awful for her having lost her husband without these cold hearted vultures hovering over her dead husbands body trying to claim property and money they have absolutely no right to at all.
[quote]Article 1138
Heirs to property other than the spouse come in the following order: Lineal descendants by blood;
Parents;
Brothers and sisters;
Grandparents.
Article 1144
Each spouse has the right to inherit the property of the other, and his or her entitled portion is determined according to the following Subparagraphs: Where the spouse inherits concurrently with heirs of the first order, as provided in Article 1138, his or her entitled portion is equal to the other heirs;
Where the spouse inherits concurrently with heirs of the second or third order as provided in Article 1138, his or her entitled portion is one-half of the inheritance;
Where the spouse inherits concurrently with heirs of the fourth order as provided in Article 1138, his or her entitled portion is two-thirds of the inheritance;
Where there is no heir of any of the four orders provided in Article 1138, his or her entitled portion is the entirety of the inheritance.[/quote]
My feeling is that the brother does have some warped sense of responsibility to his dead brother. Bearing in mind that he’s just lost a sibling, and your sister has lost a husband, people are not going to be thinking to clearly at the moment. The Law - as written - is entirely on your sister’s side. However, there are ways and means for families to make “private arrangements” outside of the law; in other words, they may use threats and coercion. They will do this not because they’re evil, but because they have views about family that will be alien to you (or to us, or to many Taiwanese people even).
A lawyer will not be able to help you because, as a couple of other people just said, there is no legal question. What you need instead is muscle. In Taiwan, might is right, so yes, bring some male family members, or friends, if possible. Nobody needs to get violent; you just need to make it clear that nobody is going to be a walkover.
Yeah, I forgot to mention that since you haven’t provided very much information other than the most basic of facts, your sister’s brother-in-law might really have the best of intentions, but just a different point of view. Its a traumatic time for everyone, probably. If you can come here (very safe, don’t worry about that at all) just to be with your sister at this horrible time, then that’s probably enough for now. Is she Singaporean? With Taiwanese nationality? Then she really has NOTHING to worry about in legal terms.
But she REALLY should be in close contact with the foreign spouse network. They CAN and WILL help her.
Please remember to keep posting from Taiwan, skybluish, and let us know how things go. A lot of new posters here tend to disappear and we never find out how things work out for then. I want to hear a happy ending.
I feel that Icon may have a point, that the BIL is attempting to use the children as some kind of bargaining chip to get what he really wants, his brother’s property and money. And that maybe there is no risk of him abducting the children. But personally I wouldn’t take any risks.
Regarding making allowances for the BIL because he is grieving- well a genuinely grieving brother doesn’t talk like that.
So most of the assets are in the BIL and husband’s name ? That’s going to make it difficult for your sister because she really is going to have to go to court to win that. In fact, I would say that any assets that are not in her name now, and readily convertible to cash, she might as well give up on. She may be a Taiwanese Citizen, but she hasn’t got any family might behind her, and no guanxi, and that’s more or less all that counts in Taiwan.
My advice would be to GTHO of Taiwan with her children as soon as possible after the funeral. And not let any of her husband’s family anywhere near her or the kids. In fact, go and stay in a hotel on the other side of town while she is making plans to leave, Seriously. The longer she stays in Taiwan the more chance there is of things going seriously wrong for her and the kids.
Do the unexpected. Pre-empt their move. Take the kids out NOW and park them with family in Singapore. Come back for the funeral WITH MUSCLE (to protect you) and negotiate from a position of strenght and take your time.
This is the best idea, get the kids out of there first then come back for the funeral with some backup. Your sister is head of the family now.
The BIL has shown his hand already, both towards kids and property, time to take preventative action.
The law will stand with the wife but it’s making sure you and your family are safe while details are worked out is the most important thing.