• The dentist was ordered to pay his mother after signing a contract 20 years ago
  • When he was 20, mother wrote up a contract worried she would be abandoned
  • It entitled her to 60 percent of her son’s earnings for raising and educating him
  • He and his brother refused to pay, but Taiwan’s Supreme Court ordered him to 

By Gareth Davies For Mailonline

Published: 14:13 GMT, 3 January 2018 | Updated: 14:28 GMT, 3 January 2018

Taiwan’s top court has ordered a dentist to pay his mother around £550,000 as reimbursement for the money she spent raising and educating him.

The supreme court Tuesday upheld a previous ruling that the 41-year-old, identified by his family name Chu, should honour a contract he signed with his mother 20 years ago promising to refund her for bringing him up.

Worried nobody would be there to look after her when she grew old, the mother signed the contracts with her sons stipulating they must pay her 60 percent of the net profit from their incomes.  

The supreme court in Taipei (pictured) Tuesday upheld a previous ruling that the 41-year-old, identified by his family name Chu, should honour a contract he signed with his mother 20 years ago promising to refund her for bringing him up

The supreme court in Taipei (pictured) Tuesday upheld a previous ruling that the 41-year-old, identified by his family name Chu, should honour a contract he signed with his mother 20 years ago promising to refund her for bringing him up

The plaintiff, surnamed Lo, divorced her husband in 1990 and raised their two sons on her own. 

Lo signed the contracts with her sons after they both turned 20. 

She accused her sons of ignoring her after they both started relationships, saying their girlfriends even sent her letters through their lawyers demanding her not to ‘bother’ her sons, according to local reports.

She filed the lawsuit eight years ago when they refused to honour the contracts. 

The older son eventually paid her 5million Taiwanese dollars (£120,000) to settle the case.

Her younger son claimed that the contract violated ‘good customs’ as raising a child should not be measured in financial terms, and went to court against his mother.

Worried nobody would be there to look after her when she grew old, the mother signed the contracts with her sons stipulating they must pay her 60 percent of the net profit from their incomes. One of the sons went on to become a dentist (file image)

Worried nobody would be there to look after her when she grew old, the mother signed the contracts with her sons stipulating they must pay her 60 percent of the net profit from their incomes. One of the sons went on to become a dentist (file image)

Worried nobody would be there to look after her when she grew old, the mother signed the contracts with her sons stipulating they must pay her 60 percent of the net profit from their incomes. One of the sons went on to become a dentist (file image)

Lo appealed all the way to the supreme court after lower courts ruled in favour of her son.

The supreme court said the contract was valid as Chu was an adult when he signed it, and that as a dentist he was capable of repaying his mother to the tune of 22.33million Taiwanese dollars. 

Cases of abuse and abandonment of senior citizens have been on the rise in Taiwan in recent years, prompting calls for a law to jail adults who fail to look after their elderly parents although it is yet to pass.

 



Read more at DailyMail.co.uk