If you are wondering what happens when a person dies intestate (i.e. without leaving a valid Will) then this article will explain things for you. Perhaps you are also wondering whether you may receive an inheritance following the death of someone who didn’t leave a will. If so, this article is also relevant to you.

The main points can be summarised as follows:

If you make a Will before you pass away (a legal document setting out your instructions as to how your assets are shared after death), then you will have named someone as an executor. This means they must distribute your assets as set out by your will. But if you pass away without having made a will, then the Intestate Succession Act will be needed to show who should manage the estate, how the assets should be shared and with whom. You therefore have no power to decide who gets your assets after your death.

There is a Valid Will – How an Estate is Distributed

In this case the Will contains the directions as to how the estate should be distributed. It will name someone as an ‘executor’ who must apply to the court for something called a Grant of Probate. When the executor receives this, they can then approach the various financial institutions like banks and gather the deceased’s assets. They must then pay off any debts and taxes still owed, before apportioning the assets to the beneficiaries as the will instructs.

There is No Valid Will – How an Estate is Distributed

In Singapore, a person is described as having died ‘intestate’ if they die without leaving a valid Will.

To determine how the estate is distributed, the Intestate Succession Act must be consulted. The relatives of the deceased will inherit the assets according to the proportions set out in this act.

Intestacy can also apply to assets when someone makes a Will incorrectly, and the court has declared it invalid.

In conclusion, for people dying without a Will, the state ultimately decides what happens to your assets, via the Intestate Succession Act, and you have no deciding role to play. It is for this reason that, as a law firm, we advise all our clients to make a Will; it ensures they get to decide who should manage their estate, and who inherits their assets after their death.

What Happens to the Assets of an Intestate Person?

1. The assets are frozen

Now that the assets’ owner is dead, no money can be withdrawn from bank accounts, no properties sold, and no securities transferred in any way. To begin to access these assets, an application must be made to the court by the deceased’s next of kin, to obtain Letters of Administration.

This is a situation we frequently come across as lawyers, where the next of kin require a Grant of Probate (if a Will exists) or Letters of Administration (if no Will) to deal with frozen assets.

• To access bank accounts in the sole name of the deceased, the next of kin need to apply for probate to obtain the money in them
• To transfer or sell an HDB flat or other private property in the sole name of the deceased, then the next of kin must apply for probate
• To enable an insurance policy to be paid out, the insurance company will ask to see either the Grant of Probate or the Letters of Administration, to ensure they are paying out to an authorised individual.
• Where the deceased had a car, or shares, then in order to transfer or sell that property, proof of probate is required.

2. Next of kin must apply for Letters of Administration to unfreeze the assets

A specialist probate lawyer should be engaged by the next of kin (normally the spouse or eldest child of the deceased) to obtain a Grant of Letters of Administration. The purpose of this court order is to appoint the next of kin as the personal administrator of the estate. Their duties include gathering the deceased’s assets, settling any debts, and ensuring the beneficiaries receive the rest of the estate they are entitled to.

This administrator is tasked with managing and distributing the deceased’s estate, according to the Intestate Succession Act. The Act lists the following people, in the order they are eligible to apply for Letters of Administration:

• Spouse
• Children
• Parents
• Sisters and brother
• Nieces and nephews
• Grandparents
• Aunts and uncles

According to this order, if the deceased’s children want to be administrator(s), then the spouse of the deceased must give up their right to apply for Letters of Administration.

Letters of Administration will be granted to the applicant, assessed by the court as being the most suitable person to manage the estate of the deceased.

3. The assets will be used by the administrator to pay off debts

An accurate list of assets will need to be made by the administrator, in order to pay off the deceased’s loans, taxes and debts. Included in this will be credit cards, utilities, subscriptions and bank loans.

4. Assets are distributed to surviving family members under the Intestate Succession Act

 The distribution of an intestate person’s assets must be done in accordance with the Intestate Succession Act. The inheritance to be distributed includes real estate, securities, bank accounts, and any other assets that the deceased owned at the time of their death, once taxes and debts are paid.

How an intestate person’s assets are divided in Singapore will depend largely on whether they were married or single, and if they had children.

It is often assumed that if a person dies without leaving a valid Will, their spouse will inherit everything. However, this is only true if the deceased had no surviving parents and no children. If children or parents are still living, then the spouse will actually only get 50% of the inheritance.

What happens more often is that the deceased person’s property is apportioned between several different members of their family – usually their spouse, brothers/sisters, aunts and uncles, and grandparents.

5. The Intestate Succession Act sets out how much the beneficiaries inherit

Look under section 7 of the act to find out how to distribute the deceased’s estate where there is no Will. These rules of inheritance must be followed by the administrator of the estate, as follows:

• There is a spouse (but no children or parents): the spouse gets everything.
• There is a spouse and children: spouse gets half of the assets, the children get the other half in equal shares.
• There are children but no spouse: children share everything equally.
• There is a spouse and parents, but no children: spouse gets half, parents get the other half in equal shares.
• There are only parents (no spouse or children): parents get everything in equal shares).
• There are only brothers and/or sisters (no spouse, children or parents): the brothers and sisters (or children of the deceased brothers or sisters) share everything equally.
• There are only grandparents (no spouse, children, parents, brothers, sisters, or children of deceased brothers or sisters): grandparents share everything equally.
• There are only aunts and/or uncles (no spouse, children, parents, brothers, sisters, children of deceased brothers or sisters, or grandparents): uncles and aunts inherit everything shared equally.

Contact a specialist estate lawyer

It’s often overwhelming and emotionally very stressful to deal with a loved one’s estate in the aftermath of their death. Our probate lawyers are always compassionate and professional when dealing with clients at this sensitive time, and can help them through probate or estate administration.

A Grant of Probate is needed from the court if a deceased person has died leaving a Will. The beneficiaries are set out in the Will, and they inherit the assets.

However, when a person dies and does not leave a valid Will, then family members must ask the court to issue a Grant of Letters of Administration. The family members named in the Intestate Succession Act then inherit the deceased’s assets.

This article explains how these two legal documents differ from each other.

When A Person Dies, What Happens to Their Estate?

In Singapore, when a person dies, the property, effects, bank accounts and investments they leave behind form their “Estate”. This Estate must be distributed to the beneficiaries of the deceased. These beneficiaries must obtain an order for the court that gives authority to whoever is managing the Estate, in order to:

• Pay off any debts owed by the deceased
• Sell or transfer property the dead person owned
• Close their bank accounts and cash in any investments
• Distribute what remains of the Estate to the beneficiaries

The Deceased Person Made a Will

In this case, the court issues a Grant of Probate to allow the distribution of the Estate by an “Executor”, named in the Will.

The Executor plays a vital role in the probate process, by ensuring the assets are located and distributed fairly to the beneficiaries. If you are making a Will, choose your named Executor carefully, because the beneficiaries will have no power to replace them following your death. Ensure they are trustworthy and capable of managing the process, which may take several months.

The duties of the Executor are usually: to deal with the affairs of the deceased; set their assets; ensure any debts they owed are settled; and ensure the assets go to the beneficiaries named in the Will.

Think of the Grant of Probate as the court’s way of saying that the Will is valid. Financial institutions involved in the settling of the Estate will require a Grant of Probate so they can be sure that the Will is indeed legal and valid, and the named Executor(s) are the right people to be dealing with the Estate. They won’t release funds without it.

The Deceased Person Did Not Make a Will

In these circumstances, the court’s authority is given via Letters of Administration to the next of kin, and is used to allow an “Administrator” to deal with the Estate.

If no Will exists, then nobody has been specifically appointed by the deceased to administer their Estate and so the law must identify the people who can apply to administer the Estate. In order of priority, these individuals are as follows:

1. The spouse of the deceased,
2. The children
3. The parents of Brother and sisters
4. Nieces and nephews
5. Grandparents
6. Aunts and uncles

Sometimes the person(s) with priority to apply for Letters of Administration does not want to take on that responsibility, and in such cases, all of the beneficiaries can agree that a different individual should become the Administrator. The beneficiaries can therefore ‘renounce’ their right to administer the Estate, in favour of someone else.

In situations where the deceased did not leave a valid Will, section 7 of the Intestate Succession Act will apply. This section sets out how the assets should be apportioned and distributed. If, for example, the dead person had no living parents or children, then the spouse inherits everything. If there are living children and a spouse of the deceased, then the spouse will get half of the estate and the children get the other half.

A specialist probate lawyer can help you

Our team of experienced specialist probate lawyers are ready to help you with any support you need on the subject of Wills, probate and letters of administration.

As specialist probate lawyers, we often act on behalf of foreign firms and executors in cases where the deceased person lived outside of Singapore, but had assets (usually properties and/or bank accounts) in Singapore. In this article we explain how we can re-seal foreign probate in Singapore—i.e. formally recognise it in Singapore. If the foreign country is part of the Commonwealth then the probate is re-sealed, but if the country is outside the Commonwealth then a fresh Grant must be obtained.

Resealing of Probate – When Is It Required?

Ordinarily, when a person living abroad passes away, their next of kin or executor would have probate carried out in the courts of the country where the person was domiciled, to obtain access to their assets there.

But if a person dies while living in one country, but while owning assets located in Singapore, how should their executor and beneficiaries take control of the Singaporean assets, in order to administer the estate and share the assets among the lawful beneficiaries?

Singapore and its courts do not recognise foreign Grants of Probate. Therefore, if the foreign person has assets held in Singapore, and the executor wants to manage the deceased’s estate there, financial institutions in Singapore would require the executor to produce a Singapore court order. The executor must apply to have the original probate in Singapore resealed, so the original Grant is recognised formally (in other words, ‘re-sealed’) by the probate registry in Singapore.

How Should the Executor Obtain This Singapore Court Order?

Option 1: If probate was obtained by the executor in a foreign country belonging to the Commonwealth, or Hong Kong, then the executor can make an application to “reseal the foreign Grant of Probate in Singapore”. This then means the foreign grant of probate is recognised in Singapore. The executor then gains the same powers from the court in the original grant of probate, with no need to alter the terms it contains. It’s just as if the grant of probate had been issued in Singapore.

In our experience, it takes around 2 months in order to get a resealing of a Grant of Probate, and around 3 months to reseal a Letter of Administration. Relatively speaking, resealing is a fast and efficient way to allow executors to get access to assets in Singapore.

Option 2: If probate was obtained by the executor abroad in a country not part of the Commonwealth, or Hong Kong, then the executor must apply in Singapore for a fresh Grant of Probate. It is not possible in this circumstance to reseal it. Situations like this usually require about 4 months to obtain a fresh grant.

Applying for a Resealing of a Foreign Grant of Probate / Letters of Administration in Singapore

The executor of the estate of someone who died while domiciled overseas, can apply for the original Grant to be resealed in Singapore, if:

• The deceased is domiciled in a Commonwealth country or Hong Kong
• The deceased had assets in Singapore
• A Grant of Probate has already been obtained by the executors from the dead person’s home country.

Once the foreign Grant is resealed, the executor can start to manage the deceased’s Singapore assets. The executor can now use the Resealing Court order to compel financial institutions to move money or assets to them for dealing with, and for distribution to the beneficiaries.

To apply to have a foreign Grant of Probate resealed in Singapore, you must apply to the Family Division of the High Court. The court will have to be satisfied that the original Will and Grant of Probate were made under the laws of the original jurisdiction and were valid. If they are satisfied, they’ll then issue a memorandum of resealing. Then the foreign Grant of Probate can be said to be in force in Singapore, and used to administer the deceased’s assets in Singapore.

Likewise, if there was no Will, and the executor had applied for a Grant of Letters of Administration in the home country, a Resealing of the Grant of Letters of Administration can then be applied for in Singapore.

The filings should always be made to the Singapore High Court in cases of resealing foreign Grants of Probate, or Letters of Administration.

We are leading probate lawyers in Singapore

We’re often named as leading Singapore lawyers in national media, and we have many years of successful practice, making us the safe and trusted choice. We would be delighted to help you with any queries you have about this area of law. The first consultation will be free.

This article is designed to explain how the law works in relation to inheriting Housing and Development Board (HDB flats). It can be a confusing area of law to understand, and there are many things that can influence the process. For example, it is important to know whether the deceased person left a valid Will when they died or not. Also, does the HDB flat have any other owners? If you—the person inheriting the flat—own other properties or flats, that can also have an impact on the situation.

If you are a co-owner of an HDB flat, and the other owner dies, then it’s important to understand how the inheritance rules work in this situation. Make sure you know what the implications are for your ownership, and how to protect your affairs.

You should always look at the latest policy conditions on the HDB website.   HDB’s website sets out the prevailing eligibility criteria that proposed flat owners must meet before taking over ownership of an HDB flat. Proposed owners must physically occupy the flat upon the ownership change. The application for a change in flat ownership (not through a sale) is subject to HDB’s approval based on the prevailing eligibility conditions.

HDB Inheritance and Religion

This is an important topic as religion may affect the law around inheriting HDB flats, and it varies between Muslims and non-Muslims. The situation can be summarised as follows:

• Deceased Muslim flat owner, no Will: Syariah Law Faraid will govern how the HDB flat is dealt with.
• Deceased Muslim flat owner, leaving a Will: only one third of the property can be bequeathed by the owner—the remainder will be distributed by the court, according to the principles of Faraid.
• Deceased non-Muslim flat owner, no Will: the Intestate Succession Act will govern how the HDB flat is dealt with. A beneficiary or relative can ask the court to be appointed as the trustee in order to manage the process.
• Deceased non-Muslim flat owner, leaving a Will: the Will must be proved and executed through the probate procedure. The process should be managed by the appointed trustee or executor, according to the Probate and Administration Act.

HDB Inheritance and Different Types of Property Ownership

Here is a helpful reference guide which explains how different types of property ownership affects HDB inheritance. Co-ownership can complicate matters; be clear on how the property is co-owned:

• Joint tenancy

This form of ownership is where all co-owners have an equal share in the flat. When one dies, their interest passes automatically to the remaining eligible owners. To be an eligible co-owner, you must be a Singapore citizen or permanent resident, and be 21 years old or more. A joint tenancy overrides a will, so whether the deceased had a Will or not is irrelevant here.

• Tenancy-in-common

In this form of ownership, each owner has a separate interest in the HDB property.

If one owner dies, inheritance laws dictate how their ownership share is transferred—it doesn’t get transferred to the remaining owners automatically.

If the deceased owner left a Will, their share of the property is distributed according to the provisions of that Will. If they died intestate (without a Will) then their share of the flat is dealt with under the Intestate Succession Act.

• Sole Ownership

In the case of a non-Muslim who solely owns an HDB flat, if they had no Will then the flat is sold and their spouse and children share the proceeds. The spouse receives 50%, and the children receive the other 50% divided equally among them.

When there is no surviving spouse or parents, but there are children, they will then inherit the flat in equal proportions. When there is no spouse or children, but living parents, they inherit the flat in equal shares. If the deceased is single and has no remaining family alive, the government receives the flat.

The HDB Inheritance process

When an HDB flat owner dies, there are many issues to be resolved, but below is a brief summary. To ensure that the inheritance process is fully complied with, beneficiaries should speak to a lawyer.

Death of a joint tenancy owner: in this case, the remaining owner should submit a Notice of Death to the Singapore Land Authority (SLA). They can do this either directly at the SLA, or with the help of the Housing and Development Board. There are certain necessary documents that must be submitted, such as the Death Certificate. Other legal requirements of the Notice of Death are that it must be witnessed by someone of at least 21 years of age, typed and printed.

Death of an owner in a tenancy in common: the family of the deceased should engage a lawyer to obtain Grant of Probate.

Death of an intestate person: If the deceased died intestate (without a Will) then an application must be made to the court by a lawyer for the Grant of Letters of Administration. Once they have the legal authority from the court to start managing the estate, the administrator or executor should then register their legal right to do so.

Documents to be included in the application process are

• Original copies of the Grant of Letters of Administration, or Grant of Probate
• The Will
• For Muslim estates: the original Inheritance Certificate from Syariah Court must be included in the application process.

Once these requirements have been fulfilled, the new owners can have the interest in the HDB flat transferred to them.

If a Beneficiary Owns Private Property Already

Owners of private property or owners who have disposed of private property within the last 15 months may take over the ownership of an HDB flat if they meet the following:

• The existing flat owner has fulfilled the requisite occupation period
• At least 1 of the proposed owners is a Singapore Citizen

• All proposed owners and listed occupiers must continue to live in the flat upon the change in flat ownership.

If the beneficiary is already an HDB flat owner

The proposed owners must not be a current owner or essential occupier of:

• An HDB flat
• A DBSS flat, or an Executive Condominium (EC) unit (within its 5-year Minimum Occupation Period) bought from a developer.

If the beneficiary already owns commercial property

In that case, the HDB flat can be kept by the beneficiary, as long as the commercial property they own doesn’t contain a residential component.

Possible complications

If the law on HDB ownership is followed correctly, then there shouldn’t be any serious problems. But care should be taken in some specific areas. For example, sometimes an informal arrangement regarding the mortgage means that the owner on paper is not the mortgage payer.

The beneficial owner of the flat may be someone entirely different to the name on paper. Sometimes, the person paying the mortgage will have to give proof of these payments in order to protect their interest in the property. This is easy enough if they paid the mortgage out of their CPF (Central Provident Fund), but if they used other forms of income then it may be more complex.

HDB ownership amongst siblings can be complicated, as demonstrated in the case of Ong Chai Koon and others v Ong Chai Soon [2021] SGHC. The case did not deal specifically with inheritance, but it does show how hard it can be to prove who pays a mortgage.

If you want to stipulate how your HDB flat is inherited and by whom, you should set this out in your Will, otherwise there may be conflict amongst your surviving family members or co-owners. A Will ensures your first choice of person inherits the flat.

If you own an HDB flat, speak to a lawyer who practises inheritance law and ask them to explain the intricacies of HDB inheritance.

Likewise, as a co-owner of an HDB flat, make sure you also understand inheritance law, succession, and intestate succession, in order to protect your rights.

PKWA Law has once again been recognised by The Straits Times’ in their third edition of “Singapore’s Best Law Firms” for 2023. This is the third straight year that the firm has been named by the Straits Times as one of Singapore’s best law firms.

The lists of the most-recommended law firms by legal categories was published on 24 November 2022, both in The Straits Times’ newspaper edition as well as on ST Online.

PKWA Law is recognised in 2 categories:

• Family Law
• Conveyancing

As compared to last year’s ranking, this year ST managed to reach out to over 6,000+ professionals and gathered more than 12,000 recommendations. The “Singapore’s Best Law Firms 2023” list is based on recommendations provided by lawyers (peer-to-peer survey), in-house lawyers (corporate legal departments) and clients in 18 different fields of law.

We’d like to express our thanks to our clients for their ongoing trust and confidence in us. It is a true pleasure to have served you and we look forward to continuing to work closely with you in the future.

We’d also like to recognise the endless dedication and hard work of all our lawyers and staff. It is a credit to them that our clients keep returning to us and we’d like to dedicate this award to our teams who keep PKWA running smoothly.

PKWA Law Secures Victory for Client in Divorce Case, Exposing Ex-Husband’s Attempt to Conceal Over $3 Million in Assets

Our family lawyers have successfully acted for the ex-wife in a divorce in which the ex-husband was found to have hidden over $3 million of matrimonial assets from her. The High Court ordered the money to be put back into the marriage pool for division because the timing of the transfer was “questionable.”

In this case, our divorce lawyers successfully represented the ex-wife, uncovering the ex-husband’s efforts to hide more than $3 million in matrimonial assets.

Days after he learned that his then-wife had filed for divorce on the grounds of infidelity, the ex-husband withdrew his bank account and transferred his $3 million-plus shares to relatives and friends.

Our lawyers successfully argued that the ex-husband’s actions constituted a dissipation of matrimonial assets, with the sole aim of preventing our client from making a claim on the $3 million of assets. Among the assets were a $2.7 million stake in a company transferred to his parents and a friend, along with $1 million in bank accounts and an insurance policy.

Our team of divorce lawyers effectively demonstrated that the ex-husband intentionally dissipated assets amounting to approximately $3 million, and the High Court agreed with us that it should step in to restore justice.

Our client, who endured a 21-year marriage, had engaged us to initiate divorce proceedings in April 2018 upon discovering her husband’s infidelity.

For additional information on this case you may read here: https://www.singaporelawwatch.sg/Headlines/Man-went-all-out-to-hide-over-3m-from-ex-wife

Maintenance is a way for a wife to have her financial needs met when a divorce happens. A court is often required to answer the crucial questions of how much maintenance a wife should get, and for how long she should receive it.

The court will need to consider whether an ex-wife in a divorce has an automatic entitlement to payments of maintenance. If she has given up her career in order to bring up her children, she is likely to need maintenance for the remainder of her life if she cannot resume that career.

However, maintenance is not always life-long, as its purpose is really to help the spouse as long as it takes for her to regain her self-sufficiency.

In recent case law (ATE v ATD), the courts have stated broad guidelines as to when nominal wife maintenance should be paid, and when it should not. The three main principles are:

1. There should be no automatic award of nominal maintenance as a matter of course;
2. Nominal wife maintenance will not be awarded simply because a wife claims her situation will change in the future;
3. When deciding whether to award nominal maintenance, the court will consider the underlying rationale and purpose of the payments to a former wife.

The Women’s Charter, in section 114(2) states the overarching reason for maintenance as being financial preservation – the wife must be maintained at a standard of living that is equal to that she enjoyed whilst married. However, this section of the charter must be applied in a “common-sense holistic manner, that takes into account the new realities that flow from the breakdown of marriage”.

Moreover, there are different reasons behind the duty of a husband to maintain his wife during a marriage (section 69(1)) of the Charter, and the obligation to maintain a former wife (section 113). In Elements of Family Law in Singapore [(LexisNexis, 2007)] at p 476, the following guidance is given by Prof Leong Wai Kum:

“In the former situation, the objective is to provide modest maintenance, namely, to help her overcome her immediate financial need, which may well be the same objective when ordering maintenance for a dependent child. In the latter situation, maintenance ordered for a former wife, however, serves the far more ambitious objective of giving her a fair share of the surplus wealth that the spouses had acquired during the subsistence of the marriage.”

Courts often take into account each party’s portion of the marital assets when they calculate the right quantum of maintenance, since the power to order wife maintenance is in addition to the power to order division of matrimonial assets. See the case law of BG v BF [[2007] 3 SLR(R) 233] at [75]−[76], Rosaline Singh [[2004] 1 SLR(R) 457] at [13]; Tan Bee Giok at [27] and AQS [[2012] SGCA 3] at [51].

When maintenance is awarded to a former wife, it is done with the consideration that she must try to regain self-sufficiency, and that she should not expect to depend for her whole life on the maintenance paid by the former husband (see the Singapore High Court decision of Quek Lee Tiam v Ho Kim Swee (alias Ho Kian Guan) [1995] SGHC 23).