Show caption A Taiwanese mother has won reimbursement from her sons for raising them. Photograph: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images Taiwan Court orders dentist to pay his own mother for raising him Judges uphold Taiwanese divorcee’s contracts with her two sons requiring them to reimburse her for their upbringing and education Agence France-Presse in Taipei Wed 3 Jan 2018 08.38 GMT Share on Facebook

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Taiwan’s top court has ordered a dentist to pay his mother around £554,000 as reimbursement for the money she spent raising and educating him.

The supreme court 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 repay her.

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

Worried that nobody would look after her when she got old, Lo signed the contracts with her sons after they both turned 20, stipulating that they must pay her 60% of the net profit from their incomes.

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. It ordered him to pay Tw$22.33m ($744,000).

Lo 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 Tw$5m 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.

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