Quora Answer: What Happens to Your Estate if You Do Not Have a Will?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “What happens to your estate if you do not have a will?”

Should you pass away without a valid will, you are considered to have died intestate.  In such a case, your estate is availed to the prevailing intestate law, wherever you are legally domiciled.  For example, within the Singapore context, your insurance policies pay out to the estate, unless you have nominated a beneficiary.  Your CPF also pays out to your estate, unless you have nominated beneficiaries for it.  Your joint tenancy property reverts to the surviving owners.  Your joint bank accounts also revert to the surviving account owner.

Everything else is part of the estate to be distributed.  This includes any further bank accounts, liquid, and illiquid assets such as securities, further insurance policies, property, cash and personal effects, and anything that is verifiably yours.  We must note that many places have estate taxes that may be due.  Singapore does not have an inheritance tax.  Also, property and other assets overseas may come under the intestacy laws there.

If you are in Singapore, and pass away, a Muslim, the estate is distributed according to fara’idh, Muslim inheritance laws.  This is an archaic system that discriminates against women, granting them half the share of the men, and denies non-Muslim heirs the opportunity to inherit.

There will be a probate process where two members of the immediate family becomes executors of the estate, and the rest of the family sign letters of renunciation of excess claim, so that the estate is divided equitably, according to intestacy laws.  This means, for example, that the surviving spouse may get 50% of the estate, and the rest divided among the surviving children.  This gets complicated when the family is large, or involved adopted family members, half- or step siblings, and multiple prior marriages.

This entire process may take from a few months to much longer, especially if there is dispute.  To save the family infighting, I suggest you write a will.  If you are a Muslim, perhaps a convert, with most of your family being non-Muslim, in Singapore, I suggest setting up a trust so that your family benefits.