You will be able to say what a will controls and which assets pass outside it.
Kumar (an invented example you met in lesson 4.2) is 35, married, and has a daughter aged three. He has given life cover a lot of thought. He takes it for granted that his wife would inherit everything else he owns if he died, simply because they are married. Singapore law makes that only partly true, and the gaps can leave a family with months of paperwork and, in some cases, real hardship.
A will is a written document stating who gets your assets after your death and who is responsible for carrying that out. The Wills Act governs wills made by non-Muslims in Singapore.
A will has three main jobs. It names your beneficiaries, which can be individuals or organisations, and sets out what each of them receives. It appoints one or more executors. Executors gather in your assets, settle your debts and pass on whatever remains. If you have young children, a will can also appoint a guardian to bring them up if both parents die. Parents leave out this third job more often than the other two. If no guardian is named, relatives may have to work out among themselves who raises the children, and if they cannot agree, a court decides.
The requirements for a valid will are in the Wills Act. You put the will in writing and sign it in front of two witnesses. Both witnesses need to be there at the same time, and each of them signs as well. Choose witnesses who get nothing under the will and whose spouses get nothing either, since a gift left to a witness can fail. You are allowed to write your own will. Plenty of people still go to a lawyer so that the wording is right and the signing is handled correctly. The Ministry of Law has guidance on making a will at mlaw.gov.sg.
When a non-Muslim dies with no valid will, the Intestate Succession Act decides where the estate goes. It follows a set order of who inherits, with set shares for each person. The split depends on which relatives are still living when you die. The Act does not take into account what you would have wanted.
For Kumar, the Act gives his wife one half of his estate and his daughter the other half. A three-year-old cannot be given her share outright, so it would be held and managed for her until she reaches adulthood. That adds paperwork and leaves the family with less flexibility than Kumar would want his wife to have. There is also a delay at the start. His wife would need to apply to court for the right to deal with the estate before anyone receives anything, and that takes time.
Certain people get nothing at all under the Act: an unmarried partner, a friend, a charity, and a stepchild who was never adopted. A will is the only way to leave anything to any of them.
However carefully a will is written, some assets never pass through it. The largest is usually your CPF savings, which a will has no power over. Your CPF money goes to the people you named in your CPF nomination. If you made no nomination, the Public Trustee distributes it according to the law. Lesson 8.2 covers CPF nominations and what happens to CPF savings on death.
Insurance works in a similar way. If a policy has a valid nomination, the insurer pays the nominees directly. If it has none, the payout goes into your estate and is then dealt with under your will, or under the Intestate Succession Act if you left no will.
For property, the type of ownership decides what happens. Under joint tenancy, the property goes automatically to the owner who survives, and many couples buy their flat this way. Under a tenancy in common, your share passes through your will. Your title deed, or the HDB or Singapore Land Authority record, tells you which type you have. Joint bank accounts often go to the surviving account holder, but this depends on the bank's terms, so read them.
Everything else you own is dealt with by the will. That covers accounts in your name alone, investments, a car, valuables and any money people owe you.
In Kumar's case, he and his wife own their flat jointly, so it goes straight to her. She is also the named nominee on his term life policy, so that payout reaches her directly. What happens to his CPF depends on his nomination, which he has not checked. His savings account and share account are both in his name only, and those are the assets a will would decide.
The estates of Muslims in Singapore are distributed under Muslim law, through the Administration of Muslim Law Act. Islamic inheritance rules, called faraid, fix the share each heir receives, and a will can direct only part of a Muslim estate. The Syariah Court issues the certificate that states who inherits what. CPF nominations, insurance nominations and jointly owned property each raise their own issues in a Muslim estate. Before relying on any of the general rules here, check with the Syariah Court or with an estate planner who handles Muslim estates.
Go through your assets one at a time and work out how each would pass. The checks to make are:
whether you have a CPF nomination and who it names whether every insurance policy has a valid nomination whether your property is held as joint tenants or tenants in common, from the title deed or the HDB or Singapore Land Authority record what your bank's terms say about any joint account
Anything in your sole name without a nomination goes by your will, or by the Intestate Succession Act if there is no will. Before you think about wording or lawyers, though, you need a clear view of what you own and how each item would pass. Open your net worth sheet from lesson 1.3, because every asset on it belongs in one of three groups: will, nomination or joint ownership.
List what you own. Next to each item, write whether a will would control it or whether it passes by nomination or joint ownership.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).