Adult Guardianship in Korea: A Guide for Families Living Abroad

The call usually comes from Korea. A father’s dementia has progressed faster than anyone admitted; hospital invoices are piling up against an account nobody can lawfully touch; a tenant’s deposit needs returning; and one relative “who has the bank card” has quietly become the family’s only channel to the parent’s money. From Sydney, Toronto, or Frankfurt, the children discover something that surprises almost every family: in Korea, being a spouse or an eldest child confers no legal authority over a living adult’s affairs.

What Korean law offers instead is adult guardianship in Korea — a Family Court decision that places the protected person’s affairs in the hands of a court-appointed, court-supervised guardian. For families abroad, it is usually the only route that banks, registries, and hospitals in Korea will accept. It is also a process with more moving parts than most families expect, especially when the people asking for it live outside the country.

No one “inherits” authority over a living parent’s affairs

Korean institutions act on legal authority, not family consensus. A bank will not release a customer’s funds to a child because the family agrees it is sensible; a registry will not transfer real estate on a relative’s signature. A power of attorney only works if the parent had the capacity to understand it when signing — once capacity is lost, a new one is off the table, and institutions are often unwilling to rely on old or informal ones in precisely these situations. Korea does have a contract-based form of guardianship that can be registered in advance, but it must be set up while the person can still decide for themselves. If that was never done, the court process is what remains.

Under Article 9(1) of the Civil Act, the Family Court may commence adult guardianship for a person who, because of illness, disability, old age, or another cause of mental constraint, is continuously unable to manage their affairs. The people who may ask the court to act include the person themselves, their spouse, relatives within the fourth degree — which covers children, grandchildren, siblings, nieces and nephews — as well as a public prosecutor or the head of a local government. Living abroad does not take a child off that list. The court must also take the person’s own wishes into account (Article 9(2)).

One point families often miss: full adult guardianship is not the only form. Korean law also provides limited guardianship and specific guardianship for a single matter, and the court matches the form to how much the person can still do for themselves. The Supreme Court has made clear that the court decides which form actually serves the protected person — guided by their welfare and their wishes — and is not bound by the label the family asked for (Supreme Court Order of June 10, 2021, Case No. 2020스596).

The court appoints the guardian — and it may not be a family member

Filing the petition does not make you the guardian. Under Article 936(1) of the Civil Act, the Family Court appoints the adult guardian on its own authority. In choosing, the court must respect the protected person’s wishes and weigh their health, living circumstances, and the nature of their property, together with the candidate’s occupation and experience and any conflict of interest between candidate and protected person (Article 936(4)).

The practical consequence for overseas families is twofold. First, a candidate who lives thousands of kilometres from the parent must persuade the court that they can genuinely carry out the duties — day-to-day decisions do not manage themselves from another time zone. Second, when siblings distrust one another, or when no suitable family member is available in Korea, the court can and does appoint a neutral professional — an attorney or even a legal entity — as guardian. That is not a failure of the family’s case; in contested situations it is often the outcome that best protects the parent, and the court’s file, not any relative, then controls how the parent’s assets are handled.

Living abroad? Korean courts can still act

Cross-border families often assume that because they live overseas, “nothing can be done from here.” Korean law says otherwise. The Private International Law Act gives Korean courts international jurisdiction over an adult’s guardianship case in three situations (Article 61(1)):

Two situations follow from this. A Korean parent in Seoul with children in the United States is squarely within the Korean court’s reach, and the children may petition from abroad. And an elderly foreign resident of Korea — a long-settled expatriate, for instance — can also be protected through the Korean courts, with Korean law applying to the guardianship even though the person is not a Korean citizen.

A guardian is supervised, not handed the keys

Adult guardianship is sometimes feared as “losing the parent to a stranger,” and sometimes coveted as “getting control of the assets.” Both pictures are wrong, and the safeguards are the reason. The guardian acts under the Family Court’s continuing supervision and must account for how the protected person’s affairs are run. The court can tailor the guardian’s powers rather than granting everything at once.

Some decisions always stay close to the court. Selling, leasing, or mortgaging the home the protected person actually lives in requires separate Family Court permission, on top of the guardian’s general authority (Civil Act, Article 947-2(5)). Serious medical interventions and any placement that isolates the person are subject to their own statutory safeguards (Article 947-2(2)–(4)). The person keeps the right to decide matters of their own daily life so far as their condition allows (Article 947-2(1)).

For a family watching from abroad, this supervision cuts both ways — and usually in their favour. It means guardianship is not a shortcut for one relative to liquidate the parent’s estate. And it means that the informal arrangement many families drift into — one sibling in Korea holding the bank card and answering to no one — is replaced by a person with defined legal authority who answers to a judge.

Why these cases are harder across borders

None of this is a form-filling exercise, and the cross-border version is harder than the domestic one. The case runs before a Korean Family Court, in Korean. The court will need persuasive medical evidence of the parent’s condition, arranged in Korea. Documents signed abroad generally need authentication before Korean authorities will accept them, and petitioners overseas must manage a proceeding they cannot attend in person. Where relatives disagree — about whether guardianship is needed at all, or about who should be appointed — the case becomes genuinely contested, and the stakes include control over everything the parent owns.

Time matters too. A guardianship order is not issued overnight, and while the case is pending, an account may keep draining or a property decision may stall. Families who wait until a crisis — a hospital demanding a decision, a sale collapsing, money moving in ways no one can explain — are choosing the hardest version of the process. The earlier the situation is assessed, the more options remain, including the less intrusive forms of guardianship.

Guardianship and the Korean estate

Guardianship and inheritance are two chapters of the same story. During the parent’s lifetime, guardianship is what protects the estate from erosion — unexplained withdrawals, improvident dispositions, one relative’s unilateral control. At death, the guardianship ends and Korean inheritance law takes over. Families who have already confronted the guardianship question tend to be far better prepared for what follows: how a foreign or overseas heir claims a Korean estate, how Korean inheritance tax treats non-resident heirs, and how disputes among co-heirs are avoided or fought. An overview of the whole field is in our guide to Korean inheritance law for foreigners.

Frequently asked questions

I live abroad. Can I apply for adult guardianship of my parent in Korea?

Yes. Children are among those entitled to petition — the Civil Act allows the person themselves, the spouse, relatives within the fourth degree, and certain public officials to ask the Family Court to act (Article 9). Korean courts can hear the case when the parent lives in Korea, holds Korean nationality, or has property in Korea that needs protection. In practice, overseas families run the proceeding through a Korean attorney.

Can’t my parent just sign a power of attorney instead?

Only while they still have the capacity to understand what they are signing. Once capacity is lost, a new power of attorney is no longer possible, and Korean institutions are often unwilling to act on older or informal ones in exactly these circumstances. Korea also has a contract-based guardianship that can be registered in advance, but it must be put in place while the person can still decide for themselves.

Will the spouse or eldest child automatically be appointed guardian?

No. The Family Court appoints the guardian on its own authority, weighing the protected person’s wishes, health, living circumstances and property, and the candidate’s experience and any conflict of interest (Civil Act, Article 936). Where family members are in conflict, or no suitable candidate is available in Korea, the court can appoint a neutral professional or a legal entity instead.

Can the guardian sell my parent’s apartment?

Not freely. Selling, leasing, or mortgaging the home the protected person lives in requires separate Family Court permission in addition to the guardian’s general authority (Civil Act, Article 947-2(5)), and the guardian remains accountable to the court for how the person’s property is managed.

My parent in Korea is not a Korean citizen. Does Korean guardianship still work?

It can. Korean courts have jurisdiction when the person’s habitual residence is in Korea or their property is in Korea and needs protection (Private International Law Act, Article 61), and in such proceedings Korean law can apply notwithstanding the person’s foreign nationality (Article 75(2)).