Informal nature of Chinese adoption law proved critical in a dispute between two families over inheritance of a house in south Auckland.
Qinping Ling died in 2018. She owned a house in Ballater Place, south Auckland. Named in her 2005 will as executor and sole beneficiary was Li Hui Ling, described as her father. He died in 2010. In legal jargon, Qinping died intestate. Since her named sole beneficiary pre-deceased her, Qinping left no valid will. The Administration Act provides a backstop solution, allowing blood relatives to inherit with the nearest blood relative appointed to administer the estate. There was a challenge as to who were Qinping’s blood relatives.
The High Court was told Qinping was born in northern Vietnam into the Wu family in the late 1960s, but was raised by the Ling family. Six months after birth, Qinping’s birth parents passed their daughter on to the Ling family, living in a neighbouring village. In the 1960s, cultural practice in Vietnam was to gift children to childless couples. Renaming this child was assumed to bring good luck for the childless couple, improving their chances of having children of their own. Both the Wu and Ling families subsequently fled Vietnam in the face of hostility from ethnic Vietnamese. They settled in different parts of China. Qinping was acknowledged as a member of the Ling family in a hukou, the local residence permit issued by Chinese authorities. Evidence was given that Qinping did have occasional social contact with her Wu siblings. In 1989, Qinping came to New Zealand on a tourist visa, later gaining New Zealand residence and having her Ling parents join her on the government’s then family-reunification policy. In her early days in New Zealand, Qinping lived with members of the extended Wu family who had separately emigrated to New Zealand.
After her death, Qinping’s Wu family siblings said they were her closest blood relatives, entitled under New Zealand law to her assets on death. Justice Wylie said this depended on whether Qinping had been adopted by the Lings. New Zealand adoption law treats an adopted child as the biological child of the adoptive parents.
The High Court was told Peoples Republic of China had no formal rules for adoption at the time the Ling family fled to China. Informal oral adoptions were valid. The fact Qinping had lived with the Ling family since age six months and had been raised by the Ling family meant she had been ‘adopted’ according to Chinese law, Justice Wylie ruled. Administration of Qinping’s estate was awarded to Qinping’s adoptive mother.
Chen v. Wu – High Court (14.12.20)
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