Three legal points of wealth management that restructure families should pay attention to
Author | Zhiheng Marriage and Wealth Communication Center, Yinghe Family Lawyer Team
On December 10, 2023, Xu Ruoxuan announced on social media that she and her husband, Li Yunfeng, a wealthy Singaporean businessperson, had ended their nine-year marriage and signed their divorce last month. The couple jointly issued a statement saying that after careful consideration and rational communication, they decided to end the marriage, saying bluntly that "this is the most difficult but most suitable arrangement for each other.
According to Mirror Weekly, Li Yunfeng is busy with his career in Singapore, while Xu Ruoxuan is working smoothly in Taiwan. "One is unwilling to come to Taiwan, and the other is unwilling to return to Singapore. After a long distance and personality problems, although they have weathered debt and affairs, they finally decided to end their marriage." The story of the two has attracted the attention of the industry and the public.
(Image from Weibo @Jiupai News)
Famous female artists and young entrepreneurs
As a star entertainer in Taiwan Province of China, Xu Ruoxuan's love and marriage journey once attracted much attention. Since meeting investor Li Yunfeng in 2013 for the movie "72 Hours of Shakespeare to You", the relationship between the two has been regarded by the outside world as a love story that transcends social hierarchies.
Li Yunfeng was born in Indonesia. His grandfather and father started from scratch in Indonesia. They made their first pot of gold from the real estate market, and then slowly transferred to mining development. The family business was transformed into mining, and his family owned vast land in Indonesia. In 2003, Li Yunfeng officially took over the logistics business of the family business, Marco Polo Sea Industry.
Marco Polo Marine was founded in Singapore in 1991. Under his management, the company went public in Singapore in 2007, when Li Yunfeng was only 30 years old. He is known as the youngest CEO of a listed company in Singapore. It has grown into a listed group with 106 ships, annual revenue of 100 million yuan and a market value of 6
00million yuan.
In 2010, Li Yunfeng was awarded the "Young Entrepreneur" honor by the Asia Pacific Enterprise Awards Organization.
Flash marriage, family reorganization
According to Taiwanese media, Xu Ruoxuan and Li Yunfeng entered the marriage hall after only seven months of dating, which is a flash marriage. The two parties completed the registration of marriage in Singapore in 2015, and Xu Ruoxuan gave birth to a son in August of the same year. Xu Ruoxuan is two years older than Li Yunfeng and has a lot of emotional experience. Li Yunfeng also ended a previous marriage in 2007 and has two daughters. The two parties belong to a reorganized family and a marriage of strong alliances.
Marital financial crisis
Unexpectedly, not long after the marriage, Li Yunfeng company fell into a financial crisis, and the funding gap was as high as 1.40 billion Hong Kong dollars (about 5.60 billion New Taiwan dollars). It is rumored that Xu Ruoxuan chose to come back at that time to pay off the debt for his husband. At that time, Xu Ruoxuan specially issued a post to support Li Yunfeng, saying that he did not want to be a lady and would still invest in performance work. Li Yunfeng's career is currently developing steadily. The company has offices in Singapore, Taipei, Jakarta, and Batam, Indonesia.
Infidelity scandal in marriage
In 2021, Xu Ruoxuan was involved in Wang Leehom's divorce case and was implicated in an improper male-female relationship with Wang Leehom. At that time, Li Lianglei sent a thousand-word long article accusing Wang Leehom of evil deeds, hiring prostitutes, dating guns, and private chaos and improper male-female relations. One paragraph mentioned that "another girl is also your sex friend. You are married and have children and want you to lie to her husband with her."
At that time, many netizens compared the timeline to speculate and pointed the finger at Xu Ruoxuan, who was a wife. At that time, Li Yunfeng also issued a statement through his lawyer to defend Xu Ruoxuan's innocence, and the two went through the affair smoothly.
Ordinary people eat melons, legal people learn knowledge
Do I need to sign a prenuptial property agreement?
Xu Ruoxuan was a well-known entertainer before his marriage, and his husband is also a wealthy Singaporean. Both of them have a certain reputation in their respective circles, and they have also completed wealth accumulation and achieved wealth freedom before marriage. In addition, Xu Ruoxuan's husband is an entrepreneur, and there is also a serious debt crisis in his marriage. According to Chinese law, if both husband and wife sign together or ratify it afterwards, both parties are expressly a joint debt of the husband and wife. If one party borrows money from abroad and uses it for daily family life, it is also a joint debt of the husband and wife.
So what is the use of signing a prenuptial property agreement or a marital property agreement? This move can not only clarify the ownership of the property of both parties, but also agree on the assumption of their respective debts.
In the past, in China, the amount of wealth owned by individuals was relatively small, coupled with the constraints of traditional concepts, so the acceptance of prenuptial property agreements was not high. However, with the development of the economy and the increase in personal wealth, the amount of prenuptial property owned by people is increasing, so the acceptance of prenuptial property agreements is also increasing. We recommend the following three situations to sign a prenuptial property agreement:
1. Entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs should preferably sign a pre-marital property agreement.
2. If the income gap is large, or the original family property gap is large, the two parties sign a prenuptial property agreement.
3. It is recommended that both parties who remarry sign a prenuptial property agreement, especially if both parties who remarry have their own children, it is even more necessary to sign a prenuptial property agreement.
02 The necessity of wealth inheritance planning
Xu Ruoxuan's marriage is a typical reorganized family, with the husband bringing two minor children from his ex-wife to live with him. Whether Xu Ruoxuan or her husband died unexpectedly during the marriage relationship, the interests of the heirs are inconsistent, and it also involves the inheritance rights between Xu Ruoxuan and the stepchildren who form a supporting relationship.
For families with large differences in interests between heirs, wealth and property planning is very necessary.
Determining the intended custodian, executor, estate administrator, and testamentary trustee in advance can ensure that the assets left over by their lifelong efforts can be inherited according to their true wishes, which is conducive to maintaining family harmony and stability.
Wills, testamentary trusts, trust funds, and insurance are currently one of the most effective and common means of wealth inheritance in China.Wills are also the means of wealth inheritance used by the vast majority of people. As far as wills are concerned, seemingly simple wills are frequently confirmed to be invalid in practice, or because the decedent is incapacitated, or because the form of the will is illegal, or because the content of the will is illegal.
If the will is indeed the true will of the decedent and is found to be invalid, it will become the greatest regret of the decedent in life. At present, the law stipulates six forms of wills, including self-written wills, written wills, printed wills, witness wills, audio and video wills, and notarized wills. So how should the content of the will be planned?
How should the form of a will be chosen? How should each heir inherit? How should special clauses be handled? How should different asset types be arranged? The order of choosing different willsorderHow should assets be handled after they have changed? These are all issues that need to be addressed.
The estate administrator system is an important reform of our country's laws and an important progress in the field of marriage and family law.For individuals, the estate administrator system can not only sort out the scope of the estate and report the situation of the estate, but also take necessary measures to prevent the damage and loss of the estate, reduce the damage and loss of property caused by the heirs not knowing the scope of the estate or neglecting to exercise the right of inheritance, and most importantly, divide the inheritance so that the wealth of the deceased can be effectively passed on.
03 Coping with the Marriage Crisis
Xu Ruoxuan officially announced his divorce, on the grounds that"The two parties have different personalities, and they are separated due to work reasons." During the period, they also experienced "debt and affair turmoil"In addition to the reorganized family formed by the rich husband with his two daughters and Xu Ruoxuan, the marriage of the two parties has long been cracked. Although we cannot learn from public channels how they dealt with this marital crisis through legal means, it is easy to get together and break up the nine-year marriage in the end.
So as ordinary people, what measures can we take from the legal level when the marriage light is on?
In recent years, the divorce rate in our country has been increasing year by year. According to judicial big data analytics, the national first-instance divorce dispute cases that have been concluded so far show that three to seven years after marriage is the high incidence of marital crisis. Marriage has changed from a seven-year itch to a three-year itch. So what is a marital crisis? Our definition of marital crisis is that there are serious problems in the relationship between husband and wife, or trust problems, or family conflicts, children's education, the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, or one or both parties cheat, or domestic violence and other reasons seriously affect the stability of the marriage. One or both spouses are making efforts to improve the marital status, or the marriage is still disintegrating after a long time of hard work.
The value of marital crisis legal service products lies in rationally, legally, and effectively assisting parties in marital crisis to regain their dignity, preserve their property, and plan and prepare for child support in advance.The conclusion of marriage is similar to the establishment of a partnership company, with both capital and human nature. Both husband and wife are like corporate partners and need to trust each other and operate together.
However, the marriage relationship is not exactly the same as opening a company. Marriage is not a transaction, and there are too many emotional things in marriage, and the emotional efforts cannot be quantified and may not necessarily be rewarded. When a marriage crisis occurs, it is often inappropriate to let too many people around you participate in resolving conflicts. The help of relatives and friends is too subjective and emotional to provide a rational solution. We have seen too many such cases, and the more people involved, the more intense the conflict.
At this moment,Accompanied by lawyers who are in a difficult situation of marriage crisis, provide objective legal analysis, and actively respond to marital crises.It includes (1) providing professional legal advice and advice; (2) providing proposals to increase the advantages of child custody; (3) providing proposals to expand the control of marital property; (4) formulating marital property agreements, agency agreements and supporting professional documents; (5) formulating marital loyalty agreements and supporting professional documents; (6) providing guidelines for evidence collection such as infidelity and domestic violence; (7) providing wealth inheritance proposals and formulating relevant legal documents.
In addition, it also includes communication and negotiation, mediation, assistance in signing agreements, etc. No matter which way, lawyers providing legal advice or handling it on their behalf can help both parties in a marriage crisis to better solve the problem.
In light of this, our marriage crisis legal services will greatly improve people's perception of marriage and family lawyers, and build trust with family lawyers at the beginning of marriage crises, resolve marriage crises through legal and effective means, and enable family lawyers to truly solve marital crisis problems for clients.
Team Profile
Yinghe family lawyer team
The Yinghe family lawyer team focuses on legal services in the field of marriage and family affairs, specializing in litigation and non-litigation arrangements for marriage and family disputes (such as divorce, inheritance, cohabitation, separation of property, children and property relations after divorce, etc.); specializing in entrepreneurs' equity handling and company control arrangements in marriage and family disputes; specializing in entrepreneur family legal counsel, marital crisis response, family wealth inheritance, and foreign-related marriage and family affairs.
Liu Yanhua, Lawyer
Senior Equity Partner of
Member, Marriage and Family Law Professional Committee, Guangdong Lawyers Association
Member, Marriage and Family Law Professional Committee, Shenzhen Lawyers Association
Arbitrator of Wuhan Arbitration Commission (Wuhan International Arbitration Center)
Supervisor, Shenzhen Living Will Promotion Association
Volunteer lawyer for the "New Rain Project" and "Anti-Domestic Violence" projects of Vader Volunteer Center
Special guest of the Guangdong Provincial High Court column "Seeing the Law in the Bay Area"
Invited Lecturer, No Lawsuit Research Institute
Shenzhen Foreign Lawyers New Talent Pool Lawyers
School of Economics and Trade, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies
Lawyer Liu Yanhua has been practicing for more than ten years and has long been focusing on the field of marriage and family affairs. She has extensive experience in divorce litigation, inheritance litigation, foreign-related marriage inheritance, pre-marital and intra-marital agreements, marriage crisis response entrepreneurs' family legal counsel, and family wealth inheritance arrangements. Special guest on the TV program "Bay Area Watching the Law" of the Higher People's Court of Guangdong Province, and special guest on the TV program "Bill Tracking" of Guangdong Zhujiang Channel.
Editor-in-chief of the professional book "88 Lectures to Help You Solve Marriage and Family Law Issues" and one of the editors of "Extraordinary Family Affairs".
Cao Chenfan, lawyer
Attorney of
Lawyer Cao Chenfan has 8 years of experience in corporate legal work, specializing in handling cases in the cross-field of family affairs and family equity. He is a compound lawyer in the field of family affairs and companies. He focuses on case handling in the field of family affairs, analysis of difficult and complex cases, and research on cutting-edge legal issues. He is good at professional analysis of hot events and practical cases. Deputy editor of the professional book "88 Lectures to Help You Solve Marriage and Family Legal Issues".
U Tintin
paralegal of
Graduated from Guangdong University of Foreign Studies with a Master of Laws in Civil and Commercial Law, with 4 years of legal work experience, focusing on the research of legal practice issues in the field of marriage and family affairs, and specializing in legal document writing, contract negotiation and dispute resolution.
Han Shuo
paralegal of
Graduated from Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, with a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Economics and Finance, specializing in legal writing, with a combined background in law and economics.
Center Profile
Marriage, Family and Wealth Inheritance Legal Affairs Center
The Marriage and Family Affairs and Wealth Inheritance Legal Affairs Center is one of the professional centers of
, dedicated to providing comprehensive and professional marriage and family legal services, providing clients with one-stop family legal service solutions to help resolve legal issues related to marriage and family, including family dispute resolution, marital wealth legal risk prevention and control, entrepreneur and enterprise risk isolation, family wealth inheritance planning, wills and estate administrators, intended guardianship, family trust plan design and establishment, family trust supervisors, and legal business lectures and training.
This article and its content are shared by Zhiheng lawyers, for communication purposes only, and do not represent the legal opinions, suggestions or decision-making basis issued by the law firm or lawyers. If you need legal advice or legal professional analysis, please contact the professional lawyers of
, or leave your contact information in a private message WeChat official account. If you need to reprint this article, please contact the official account editor in the background.