Discussion Inherited Debt Is Crappy Plot

This is mostly just to vent. I freaking hate lazy/uninformed authors using a modern setting who tell me how the characters inherited awful debt.

To my knowledge forced inheritance isn't a thing anywhere for the last 40 years at least. If the debts against an estate are greater than the estate value, then the estate pays as much debt as possible and the rest is written off unless one of the inheritors is willing to take it on for some reason.

When you build a world using a preexisting setting, your plot shouldn't violate the logic of that setting without giving an explanation. So obnoxious.

 

Of course, the author usually says the money was borrowed from a loan shark.

 

It works in I Rely On Poverty To Sweep Through Survival Games because

Spoiler

the MC's father intentionally gave him debt via loan sharks because he knew being in debt would give his son a super power

 

webnovels set in the modern era usually suck precisely because of lazy authors who don't actually know anythiiing but write as if they're experts on something. They refuse to do the legwork and treat it as pure fantasy in a modern setting, completely ruining your immersion.

 

This is funny, about an hour or so earlier I was thinking of something similar. I was wondering why all the loan sharks/debt holders in novels try to hinder the MC from paying back their debt.

I was imagining myself as a merchant explaining to a nobleman how stupid such an action would be. Someone repaying the loan would only be profitable to me, while causing trouble for the debtor would result in a bad reputation and less people willing to take out a loan from me in the future. I would proceed to explain how those who use shady business practices don't last long.

 

If the debt is legal, you'd be right. In nearly all countries, there's a way to escape through some form of bankruptcy. I'm sure there's one somewhere that still has a debtor's prison system and would pass on to immediate family to work it off.

However, what about crime syndicates and family that was borrowed from? It's very hard to deal with that, even if you legally got out of debt through bankruptcy. That's where most plots hold some legitimacy, even if the author went about its handling in a convoluted way.

Crime syndicates owning or tied to a business don't like losses. So, whether they engineered a scheme to grab a loan and call in a debt to get quick returns or someone just wasn't able to pay it, they're hard to deal with. A more long-term view and logical boss in charge would develop ways for it to be paid off, even if they couldn't collect obscene interest. Be it through introducing the debtor's relatives to work they oversee or have ties to, or just to tell them they have x-amount of more time before putting pressure in various ways until they agree with the first option. A more radical one would go straight to the pressure and engineering situations that will likely result in blackmail that would ruin reputations and lives until they got the money.

It's hard for law enforcement to deal with that. Even harder to recover for the victim if they could. Which is why most people would be willing to put up with it as a plot device.

As for family you owe debt to, it's hard to cut ties with them. Moral kidnapping is a hard thing to deal with even in western cultures where blood ties aren't as strong and society doesn't frown on it so much if you ignore relatives. In eastern cultures it can cost you hard if your reputation is tainted by ignoring family and rumors happen. Officially it will depend on the situation, but since when does people's pre-conceived judgements change after they learn the actual facts of a situation? This is why most borrowers families continue to pay back debt that has been legally written off. They don't want relatives making a stink and costing them jobs if coworkers find out.

 

It's usually greed and/or power.
- If the MC owes you money, you can (somewhat) control their actions, where they work, who they fight etc.
- If the MC wants to pay their debt (or already has), but you notice that you could have made so much more money if the MC hasn't payed their debt (due to interest and/or the power dynamic mentioned above) you'd want the MC to still be indebted to you.

 

It's probably because there is much more to gain, than what you can get with just the payment. Lets assume that the law does not exist for a second or is ignored, and that the debt is owned by a female (I rarely see males holding debt in these novels, though there might be some).
Now, lets say that the female is unable to pay the debt, and you can force her to 'work' to pay off her debt, any place could work as long as you have complete control over it. Now, there is really no hope for her, and you earned 'slave' for life if nothing special happens. Why for life? Since you send her to 'work,' you provide some service whether she wants it or not, and take that out of her pay. Rack up enough hidden fees and she could only be earning 1% of what she really should be. From then on, there are countless tricks you could employ to keep her even if she worked for a million years. Simply make the interest rate higher than what she earns, or maybe cause an 'accident' where she now is forced to take another loan. And all of this is even assuming she keeps track of how much she is earning. Thus, when you should have gotten only 150% of the loan, you could 150,000% of the loan back, depending on which job you set her to.

 

So not sure about how it is in the U.S. (or Mainland China), but in Taiwan, debt is automatically inherited (along with assets) unless you explicitly waive it. And this is a thing even if your parents are, like, divorced or something. So, for instance, if my dad passed away with debts, I automatically inherit all of it unless I file some forms with the government to waive it, even though I haven't seen my dad in literally over a decade. And you have to do it within a certain time frame too, or else you just take on the debt.

This seems to be the same in Japan, as this was a plot point in an early arc in The Hero Who Returned Remains the Strongest in the Modern World (which I was very impressed by, what with the author literally having the MC telling his classmate that she can waive her father's debt, which she had no idea about, which is probably a common thing with these cases).

 

I thought people are supposed to sell their organs to pay the debt and that is where the mob made the real money.

So preventing the debt from paid by MC is just a normal step that leads to organ harvest.

 

That's interesting. Does the waiver need to be enacted from the time of death or the time of notice of death to the child? If the child was out of country and the communication loop for a long time, then returned and learned of the death and debt then that would stink.

Alternatively, that would be an interesting plot device to pass on debt. If you had an enemy and wanted to entrap them, then find some way to set up a family member that is about to die while your enemy is estranged from them. Have them pass on the inheritance.

Can you do it with all Wills or just a blood relative? It'd be even more interesting if you suddenly got a notice of a Will reading from a lawyer and found out that the estate that looked great suddenly had a lot of inherited debt. You just pay it all off and suddenly get hit with another inheritance of the same.

 

The waiver needs to be enacted from time of death, which is how, if you read a lot of Japanese manga, you'll notice that often "inherited debt" plot points are combined with "estranged deceased parents" plot points. (For instance, dude suddenly gets debt collectors calling because his estranged father apparently died and left him with tons of debt.) At that point, presumably, it's too late to waive the debt so you're stuck with it.

I have no idea if you can do it with a will. The process is automatic for blood relatives, though, so you don't need a will to pass down your debt to your kid. Heck, I'm not sure there's anything the parent can do to prematurely waive the debt while they're alive if they don't want their kids to be saddled with it.

EDIT: I think this difference in how inheritance is approached is largely due to differences in inheritance taxes. Inheritance taxes is a huge thing in the U.S. which is why all the assets/debts need to be accounted for after the death of a parent. In Taiwan, inheritance tax is actually a really recent thing -- it used to be, if your parents left you something, it was just yours, both good and bad. Which is why there's no automatically liquidating of assets to pay for debt, etc. built into the Taiwanese inheritance laws. I assume Japan is somewhat similar.

 

Huh, that reminds me of the novel Street Cultivator.

The MC is just turning his life around when he gets notified his estranged parents have died and he has to come in for the Will reading. The parents were horrible trailer-trash and the MC didn't really want the little bit they'd left behind, but figured every little bit helps. However, after he received the tiny bit of Essence (cultivation currency), the lawyer forced two Essence leeches onto him which constantly suck up Essence from him until the debts are paid off (one for his parents' debts and one for the lawyer's services, basically hidden fees).

The laws in the novel heavily favor the rich and prosecute the poor, because the companies suck up all the Essence before it can fall onto the planet (so no one can cultivate without a paycheck).

 

well the story usually take place on eastern asia so the law may different~ so meh~

 

this system is so bad omg

 

Not exactly. It's a common thing for people who live in a culture which promotes strong familial ties to automatically inherit the debt (and the inheritance) of a deceased blood relatives, as per traditional law in that place. The waiver system actually gives them a legal way to deny the inheritance.

 

Yes, those are all fairly reasonable explanations. I'm more referring to authors who casually mention that MC is having a rough time because they inherited a big debt, and then no explanation of any kind. I still dislike inherited debt as plot driver in general, but it's much better when a solid reason is given.

 

All this talk about the complexities of debt inheritance makes me want to read a novel that actually has a debtor as the protagonist. Who knows what kind of novel that would even be.

 

Actually... this is an interesting idea! With modern day limitations to what constitutes as a "legal" way of debt-collecting..the hurdles that the MC might need to go through would be quite fun to watch!

 

eh it will involve plenty of research which pain on da butt to write be it underground way or "legal" way