Recently, Mr. Cai Kangmiao and Mr. Zhao Xing successfully represented a case of declaration of disappearance derived from a probate succession case, which helped the client to smoothly advance the probate succession case associated with it and laid a solid foundation for the client to be able to successfully inherit the estate subsequently.

In September 2023, Ms. M, who was over 70 years old, approached the two attorneys for a probate succession case. After learning from her, Ms. M's husband died in November 2022 due to an illness and left a will, according to which her husband left his real estate to Ms. M and his deposits to his grandson, Mr. Wang Xiaomou, Ms. M's request was to be able to inherit her husband's real estate and leave all the property to her grandson, Mr. Wang Xiaomou, after she was 100 years old. Ms. M's claim was to be able to inherit her husband's property successfully and to leave all the property to her grandson, Wang Xiaomou, after her death.

I. Probate Succession Cases Derived from Disappearance Cases

After getting a preliminary understanding of the situation from Ms. M, the attorney found that after the death of Ms. M's husband, there were three surviving heirs in the first place, namely, his wife Ms. M, his mother Wang Molan, and his son Wang Moumou. However, Ms. M not only almost lost contact with her husband's mother Wang Moulan for various reasons, but even more problematic is that Ms. M's son disappeared as early as 2016, and is still nowhere to be found. If it is still feasible to contact Wang Molan despite the difficulty, it is imperative to apply to the court to declare Ms. M's son, Wang Mou, missing before moving forward with the probate succession case.

Second, careful study, multiple evidence, successfully applied to the court to declare Wang Mou missing

After determining the focus of the current work, the lawyer started to declare the case of disappearance. After the lawyer asked Ms. M, she learned that Wang disappeared in June 2016, but Ms. M didn't report the case to the police station until November 3, 2022, which means that the case has not been reported for less than 2 years, and the police station didn't give Ms. M an acknowledgement of receipt of the case. In this case, how to prove to the court that Wang Mou has met the legal requirements to apply for the declaration of disappearance (the whereabouts of a natural person is unknown for more than two years, the interested party can apply to the people's court to declare the natural person as a disappeared person), has become a major difficulty in this case.

In order to solve this problem, the attorney looked up the relevant legal provisions and similar precedents in Beijing, and found that, in practice, when an interested party applies to the court to declare a person missing, in addition to the receipt of the missing person report issued by the public security authorities, he or she can also provide the court with proof of the existence of a grassroots organization such as a neighborhood committee or a village committee. Therefore, to be on the safe side, the attorney first assisted Ms. M to ask the police station for the receipt of the report, and then accompanied Ms. M to the community where she lived to ask the neighborhood committee to assist in issuing a certificate of Wang's disappearance, and finally assisted Ms. M in obtaining witness statements from her neighbors, relatives and other three people. After collecting this evidence, the lawyer then went to the court in January this year to file a case.

The court heard the case in June of this year, and after a three-month statutory notice period, recently pronounced its judgment, ultimately declaring Wang Mou missing and appointing Ms. M as the administrator of his property. Thus, the case of declaration of disappearance, which was a constraint in the inheritance case, finally came to an end, and Ms. M expressed her heartfelt thanks to the two lawyers, and was full of confidence in the inheritance case to be heard next month.