The appeal filed by the woman, identified only as H, was being processed by the Hanoi People’s Court as of Monday, And tri newspaper reported.
The original suit involving the inheritance of a land plot and a five-story house on it in Dong Da District was filed by the mother-in-law, N, and was tried by the same court late last month.
N and her husband jointly owned the properties and had two daughters and a son, who had been married to H until his death.
The old couple bought the land in their names in 2010, and the five-story house was built on the plot in 2012 with funds pooled by them and their children.
N’s husband passed away in 2020 and her son followed a year later, and neither left a will. N offered to pay other heirs their inheritance in cash so she could keep the house. H agreed but demanded VND2 billion (US$78,700) for her share, while N was only willing to pay VND1.8 billion.
Unable to reach a solution, N filed the suit asking the court to divide her son and husband’s assets according to the law and allow her to pay other heirs so that she could keep the house until her death.
H’s lawyers claimed N and her husband were only figureheads in the title deed and the house did not belong solely to them.
They presented some invoices for the construction of the five-story house and claimed H and her husband paid for both properties, which should therefore be theirs.
An official from the People’s Procuracy said the invoices did not specifically list the address of the house, and so were not enough to prove H and her husband paid for it.
H also could not prove that the couple had stable jobs at the time, meaning they would not be able to pay such a large amount of money, the official said.
Concurring, the court ruled that the properties were legally owned by N and her husband, and accepted N’s demand.
The assets belonging to N’s husband will pass down first to her and her children, and her son’s assets will then be inherited by N, H and H’s two children.
N has to pay VND1.1 billion to each of her two daughters and VND1.28 billion to H and her two children to keep the house.
H, not happy with the verdict, said it was inaccurate, unobjective and not in compliance with the law as they did not gather enough evidence and did not correctly identify which property was to be considered inheritable before holding the trial.
This has negatively affected her and her children’s rights and benefits, she said.
* Names of characters have been changed
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