The Legislation as to the Vacant Succession prior to the Meiji Civil Code

Abstract

The vacant succession system prior to the Meiji Civil Code was renovated when the Meiji era entered its teens.
The ordinance (T. No. 41) issued by the Ministry of justice in the 11th year of Meiji declared an established principle that the bequeathed estate not inheritable should be held in trust by relatives, or, when no relatives were in existence, by kocho, without being transferred by kucho or kocho into the possession of the government on the extinction of family as in former days. Moreover, it provided that kocho was entitled to keep the estate for five years and that the Court should assume the charge of debt redemption if any, thus laying down the fundamental principle of administration and redemption of estates not inheritable.
It was in the 17th year of Meiji that the exact date of family extinction and kocho's drawing up of an inventory were brought into enactment, and it was to follow next year that the administration of estate by the relatives should extend over five years as in the case with kocho, and that during this term a disposal of estate must necessitate an agreement of the Court.
At and after the expiration of five years its management had to either be vested in the family council or be transferred to the government through kocho's hand. We have seen that the current civil law on the ultimate claim of the State on a bequest of the surplus (i. e. residuary) was originally patterned after this model of earlier times. It may rightly be concluded, therefore, that its prototype was moulded in the aforesaid period in the historical development of the law.