A 25-year-old woman in Shanghai sued her parents to force them to either sell her grandmother’s flat or split the sale among three people – including herself – so that she could use the money to fulfil her dream of studying abroad.
The grandmother had received the apartment from the government when her old place was demolished a decade ago. The parents had registered the place under their names and that of her daughter, surnamed Tian.
They agreed to sell the apartment after the grandmother dies and split the sale accordingly. But Tian wanted to accelerate the sale to pay for the costly expenses of studying abroad, and she insisted on her parents paying her one-third of the apartment price immediately.
If the parents sold the apartment, the older woman would have nowhere to live.
Tian then sued her parents to force the sale of the property.
During the proceedings, Tian’s parents said they had previously paid their daughter’s expenses and debts of around 500,000 yuan (US$70,000), and they had helped her connect with schools abroad, but Tian had turned them down because they did not rank high enough for her liking.
The Shanghai Baoshan People’s Court dismissed Tian’s lawsuit because the family was still together, meaning the parents could not be legally obligated to divvy up the unit.
The Shanghai Higher People’s Court also added that a person should fulfil their filial piety to their parents, which is “a traditional virtue of the Chinese people”.
Online, the backlash against Tian was harsh.
“So selfish,” said an online observer.
Another added: “She should be fulfilling her dreams independently instead of selling her parents’ property.”
According to data from the Chinese Ministry of Education, the number of outbound students from China plunged to 450,900 in 2020 after hitting a record high of 703,500 in 2019. It recovered to 662,100 in 2022 as the world continued to navigate the Covid-19 pandemic.
English-speaking countries such as the United States, Britain, Canada, and Australia remained the top destination of Chinese overseas students, according to a report by Chinese overseas study agency EIC Education.
Chinese courts are no strangers to family disputes over real estate properties.
In 2019, a Shanghai court ordered a daughter to return a residential flat to her elderly father after she sold the home to pay for her mother’s medical expenses even though the man still lived there.