You will build an asset map showing how each asset passes on your death and what decides it.
The lessons in this module each covered one route by which an asset passes on: the will, intestacy, nominations, joint holdings. In real life you own a mix, and each item follows its own route. The asset map puts every item on one sheet, with the route it takes and the person it reaches, so the gaps become obvious. It is also the sheet a lawyer will want to see when you make your will, and the one your executor will be grateful for.
Allow about thirty-five minutes. You'll need your CPF dashboard, your insurance policies, your bank and investment statements and, if you own property, your title or HDB records. Jasmine's figures are made up, and like the rest of the module this exercise is education rather than legal advice.
Make a sheet with one row per asset and these columns:
Asset, described so someone else could find it Rough value today How it is held: sole name, joint tenancy, tenancy in common, joint account, or account with a nomination The document that decides where it goes: will, CPF nomination, insurance nomination, survivorship or bank terms Who receives it under that document today Gap or action
Keep values rough, since what you are mapping is the route each asset takes. Lesson 8.5, Build your retirement income plan and estate file, joins this sheet to the rest of your plan.
Work through each type of asset.
CPF: one row for your CPF savings, which includes any CPF LIFE bequest. Check the nomination on your CPF dashboard.
Insurance: one row per policy, and remember any group policy through your employer. Each policy's nomination, if any, is on the policy documents or the insurer's app.
Bank accounts: one row per account, marked sole or joint.
Property: one row per property, with how it is held from your title or HDB records.
Investments: your CDP account, any brokerage accounts in Singapore and overseas, unit trusts, robo-advisers, SRS and any Singapore Savings Bonds or T-bills.
Digital accounts: email, phone, cloud photo storage, social media, online banking and payment apps, and anything with value or meaning to your family. These rarely have a legal instruction, but your executor will need to know they exist.
Jasmine's map has twelve rows. Her main assets, with made-up values: her four-room flat, about S$600,000, in her sole name; CPF savings of about S$320,000; SRS of about S$150,000; a CDP account of about S$350,000; US shares at an overseas broker of about S$250,000; a savings account of about S$80,000; a joint account with Megan of about S$20,000; a term policy paying S$200,000; and a whole life policy with a death benefit of about S$100,000.
For each row, write the document that decides and who receives under it today. Use what lessons 7.1 to 7.3 taught.
Jasmine's flat, savings account, CDP account, US shares and SRS all pass under her will, because they are in her sole name and have no nomination. Her CPF passes by her new nomination to Megan, Ryan and her mother. Her term policy passes by revocable nomination to her mother and Leong. Her whole life policy passes by trust nomination to Megan and Ryan. Her joint account passes to Megan under the bank's terms.
Her US shares get an extra note, because the US can tax US assets of non-US persons when they die and her family would face a US process to have the shares released. Investing in US and global markets from Singapore, lesson 4.1, The US can tax your US shares when you die, explains it. She wrote "check exposure and process" in the gap column.
Mark any row where the instruction is missing, out of date or no longer fits your wishes. Typical gaps are an old will, a nomination naming someone you no longer want, a policy with no nomination, property held in a way you didn't intend, or a digital account no one knows about.
Jasmine's gaps:
Her 2010 will names her former husband. Every asset that passes under her will, worth well over a million dollars in her map, depends on a document that no longer reflects her life.
She has no LPA, so nobody could manage her accounts if she lost capacity.
She has recorded no medical wishes.
Her digital accounts, including the log-ins for her online banking and her overseas broker, are known only to her.
Her CPF nomination and her insurance nominations, which had gaps a month ago, are now fixed, so those rows are marked done with the date.
Turn the gaps into a short list of documents, each with a date. Put the gap affecting the most money first.
Jasmine's list:
First, a new will, naming Megan as executor and leaving her estate mostly to Megan and Ryan, with a provision for her mother and a gift to Leong. She has booked a lawyer for next month.
Second, an LPA naming the donees she chose in lesson 7.4, Who decides for you: the LPA, AMD and care wishes, to be made within three months.
Third, an Advance Care Planning record, from the session she has booked at her polyclinic within two months.
Her digital accounts will go into the family letter in lesson 8.5, rather than into a legal document.
A finished asset map has a row for every asset, its rough value, how it is held, the document that decides it and the person who receives it, with gaps marked and actions dated. Below it sits your list of documents to make or update, in order, each with a date. Build yours now, then choose the three documents you'll deal with first.
Build the asset map and write the three documents you will make or update first, with a date for each.
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