Estate Planning in Singapore: The Four Instruments, and What Each One Does Not Cover

By Adrian Teo · DL Law Corporation · Advocate & Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore

Most people who come to us about estate planning have already done one thing. They made a will eight years ago, or signed a CPF nomination when they started work, or set up an LPA after a parent had a stroke. One document, filed away, and the matter treated as closed. A Singapore estate plan is not one document. It is four, and each controls a different pool of assets at a different moment in time. The gaps sit between them, and that is where families get caught.

This is general information, not legal advice. Which instruments you need, and how each should be structured, depends on what you own, how you own it, and who depends on you.

What Happens If You Do Nothing

Dying without a valid will is called dying intestate. Your estate is then distributed under the Intestate Succession Act 1967 in fixed statutory shares, and what you told your family about your intentions carries no weight. Section 7 sets the order:

Spouse only, no children or parents — the spouse takes everything.
Spouse and children — spouse one half, children share the other half.
Children, no spouse — the children share everything equally.
Spouse and parents, no children — spouse one half, parents the other half.
Parents only — the parents share everything.
Then in order: siblings, grandparents, uncles and aunts. If none survive, the estate goes to the Government.

Two consequences catch families out. A long-term partner you never married receives nothing. And a spouse does not automatically inherit everything — with children in the picture, half the estate leaves the surviving spouse’s hands, including a share of the family home.

The Act does not apply to the estate of a person professing the Muslim religion. Muslim estates are administered under Islamic inheritance law, faraid, through the Administration of Muslim Law Act 1966. The Syariah Court issues an Inheritance Certificate under section 115 identifying the beneficiaries and their shares, and that is what the Public Trustee, the banks and the Family Justice Courts work from. A Muslim testator can still make a will, but its reach is limited by faraid.

Will or no will, someone must obtain authority from the court before a single bank account can be touched — see our guide to the Grant of Probate and estate administration process.

The Will: What It Controls, and What It Cannot Touch

A will governs the assets in your estate — sole-name bank accounts, shares, your share of property held as tenants in common, vehicles, personal effects, business interests. It does three jobs beyond dividing them.

It appoints your executor

The executor applies for the Grant of Probate under the Probate and Administration Act 1934, collects the assets, pays the debts and distributes the rest. Choose someone who will still be alive, contactable and willing, and name a substitute. An executor who has died, moved abroad or renounced sends the family down the slower Letters of Administration with Will Annexed route.

It appoints guardians for minor children

A parent can appoint a testamentary guardian for a child under 21 by will, under the Guardianship of Infants Act 1934. The appointment is not automatically binding — the court’s paramount consideration is the child’s welfare — but it is the clearest evidence of what you wanted, and in practice it usually carries the day.

It has to be executed correctly

Formal validity is governed by section 6 of the Wills Act 1838 as it applies in Singapore: in writing, signed at the foot or end by the testator, that signature made or acknowledged in front of two witnesses present at the same time, who then sign in the testator’s presence. Get the attestation wrong and the whole document can fail.

Two traps are worth naming. Under section 10, a gift to a person who witnessed the will, or to that witness’s spouse, is void — the will survives, the gift does not. Family members are the people most often asked to witness, and exactly the people who should not. Under section 13, marriage revokes a will unless it was expressed to be made in contemplation of that marriage. Divorce revokes nothing: an ex-spouse named as beneficiary stays a beneficiary until you change the document yourself.

If you want a will drafted or reviewed, that sits within our wills and probate practice.

Your CPF Does Not Pass Under Your Will

This is the most common misunderstanding we see. CPF savings do not form part of your estate, so a will has no power over them. A clause leaving “all my assets including my CPF” to a named person does nothing to the CPF money.

CPF savings pass by CPF nomination, made separately with the CPF Board under the Central Provident Fund Act 1953. With a nomination, the money reaches your nominees in the proportions you set, without a court process. Without one, the savings go to the Public Trustee’s Office, which deducts an administrative fee and distributes under the intestacy rules or, for a Muslim member, the Inheritance Certificate.

Two points here matter more than anything else in this article:

Marriage revokes your CPF nomination. The same event that revokes your will also wipes your nomination. Anyone who has married since making either document has probably lost both without being told.
Divorce revokes neither. An ex-spouse can remain the CPF nominee and the will beneficiary for years after the marriage ends, purely because nobody updated the paperwork.

Insurance Nominations Operate Separately Again

Life policy proceeds are governed by the Insurance Act 1966, not by your will, and there are two kinds of nomination.

Trust nomination (section 132) — irrevocable. Nominees can only be your spouse and children, they acquire an immediate beneficial interest in the policy money, and you cannot change the nomination without their written consent. The proceeds sit outside your estate.
Revocable nomination (section 133) — you keep full ownership of the policy and can change the nomination at any time without anyone’s consent.

A trust nomination made early, in a first marriage, cannot be quietly unwound later. It is a strong protective tool and a permanent decision, and it deserves to be made with that understood rather than ticked on a form at the point of sale.

Jointly Held Property May Never Reach Your Will

How you hold property decides whether it is yours to give away at all.

Joint tenancy — on death your interest passes automatically to the surviving joint owner by the right of survivorship. It never enters your estate, and your will cannot redirect it. This is the default for many married couples.
Tenancy in common — each owner holds a defined share, often but not always equal. That share does form part of your estate and passes under your will.

Check the manner of holding on the title rather than what you assume. Someone who leaves “my half of the flat” to a child while holding it as joint tenants with their spouse has left the child nothing. Joint bank accounts raise a similar question, and there the answer turns on the account terms. With an HDB flat, a beneficiary must also satisfy HDB’s eligibility rules to retain it.

The Lasting Power of Attorney: The Instrument a Will Cannot Replace

Everything above deals with death. None of it helps if you are alive but have lost the capacity to make your own decisions, after a stroke, an accident, or the progression of dementia. A will has no force while you are alive.

The instrument for that gap is the Lasting Power of Attorney, made under the Mental Capacity Act 2008 and registered with the Office of the Public Guardian. It appoints donees to decide on your personal welfare, your property and affairs, or both. You can only make one while you still have capacity; once capacity is gone, the family’s only route is a court application for deputyship — slower, costlier, and decided by a judge rather than by you. Our separate guide covers how a Lasting Power of Attorney works and how to register one.

An Advance Medical Directive is a distinct document, not part of the LPA. Made under the Advance Medical Directive Act 1996 and registered with the Registrar of Advance Medical Directives, it records in advance that you do not want extraordinary life-sustaining treatment if you are terminally ill, unconscious, and death is imminent. Your LPA donee cannot make an AMD for you and cannot override one you have made.

Trusts: When They Earn Their Cost, and When They Are Over-Engineering

A trust separates legal ownership from benefit. A testamentary trust is created inside your will and begins on death. A living trust is created and funded while you are alive, and its assets sit outside your estate from that point. A trust usually earns its cost where one of these is true:

Minor beneficiaries — without a drafted trust the funds are simply held until the child turns 21, an age at which many parents would not hand over a whole inheritance.
A beneficiary with special needs — an outright gift to someone who cannot manage money can create a deputyship problem and may affect their access to support.
Business succession — shares passing directly to several beneficiaries can deadlock an operating company. A trust keeps those decisions in one pair of hands.
Staged distribution — where capital should be released over time, or on milestones, rather than as one payment.
Blended families — providing for a second spouse during their lifetime while preserving capital for children of a first marriage.

A trust is over-engineering where the estate is one property, CPF and some savings, the beneficiaries are competent adults, and nobody needs protecting from themselves. Trusts carry drafting, trustee and administration costs that run for as long as the trust does. Ask for a written quote covering set-up and annual running cost before deciding.

There Is No Estate Duty, But There Is Still Tax

Singapore abolished estate duty for deaths on or after 15 February 2008, so there is no inheritance tax on the estate itself. Income earned by the estate during administration remains taxable, and overseas assets may attract estate or inheritance tax where they sit — a UK property or a US brokerage account can create a foreign exposure that Singapore does not.

The Order to Do Things In

Sequence matters, because the instruments interact. This is the order we work through with clients:

List what you own and, against each item, which instrument controls it: will, CPF nomination, insurance nomination, or survivorship.
Check the manner of holding on every property. This decides what is left for the will to distribute.
Check your CPF nomination — that it exists, who is on it, and that it survived any marriage.
Check your insurance nominations, including which type each is, because a section 132 trust nomination cannot be changed unilaterally later.
Draft or update the will, now that you know which assets it governs. Appoint an executor, a substitute, and guardians if you have children under 21.
Make the LPA — the piece most often left out.
Decide on an Advance Medical Directive as a separate registered document.
Consider a trust only if one of the triggers above applies.
Store the originals and tell your executor where they are. The court needs the original will, not a photocopy. A perfectly drafted will nobody can find is an intestate estate.

What to Review After a Life Event

Marriage — revokes your will under section 13 and revokes your CPF nomination. Redo both.
Divorce — revokes neither your will nor your CPF nomination. If you do not want an ex-spouse to inherit, change the documents yourself. Divorce does end an ex-spouse’s appointment as your LPA donee unless the LPA provides otherwise, so check whether a replacement donee is needed.
A birth or adoption — provide for the new child and revisit the guardianship appointment.
Buying property — decide the manner of holding deliberately at purchase, not afterwards.
Selling a business or major asset — a will that divides an estate by specific gifts can distribute very unevenly once one of those assets no longer exists.
Death or incapacity of an executor, donee, trustee or beneficiary — replace them before the gap surfaces at the worst moment.
Assets acquired overseas, or a move abroad — a Singapore grant does not automatically reach foreign assets.

Frequently asked questions

Does my will cover my CPF savings?
No. CPF savings do not form part of your estate, so your will has no effect on them. They pass under a CPF nomination made with the CPF Board. Without a valid nomination, the savings go to the Public Trustee’s Office, which charges an administrative fee and distributes them under the intestacy rules or an Inheritance Certificate.

Does getting married cancel my will?
Yes, in most cases. Under section 13 of the Wills Act 1838, marriage revokes a will unless the will was expressed to be made in contemplation of that marriage. Marriage also revokes an existing CPF nomination. Anyone who has married since signing either document should assume both need to be made again.

Does divorce cancel my will in Singapore?
No. Singapore has no provision automatically removing a former spouse from a will on divorce, and divorce does not revoke a CPF nomination. An ex-spouse named as beneficiary, executor or CPF nominee stays in that role until you actively change the document. An LPA is different: under section 15 of the Mental Capacity Act 2008, divorce ends an ex-spouse’s appointment as donee unless the LPA provides otherwise. Review all of them as part of the divorce.

Do I need a trust, or is a will enough?
For most estates a properly drafted will, current nominations and an LPA are enough. A trust earns its cost where beneficiaries are minors or lack capacity, where a business must keep operating, where capital should be released in stages, or in blended families. Ask for set-up and annual running costs in writing before committing.

What happens to my HDB flat if I own it jointly with my spouse?
If the flat is held in joint tenancy, your interest passes automatically to your surviving co-owner by the right of survivorship. It never enters your estate and your will cannot redirect it. If it is held as tenants in common, your share does pass under your will, though the beneficiary must still meet HDB’s eligibility rules.

What does an estate planning lawyer actually do?
The work is mapping before drafting: identifying which instrument controls each asset, finding the gaps between them, then drafting the will, LPA and any trust so they operate together. An estate planning lawyer in Singapore also checks execution formalities, manner of holding and existing nominations — the details that quietly invalidate otherwise sound plans.

Speak with our wills and probate team

We draft wills, LPAs and trust arrangements, and we act on the administration and disputes that follow when a plan turns out to be incomplete. Our wills and probate practice sees which clauses cause arguments in probate and which nominations were revoked years earlier without anyone noticing. We map what you own and how each asset passes before drafting anything.

Call (65) 6557 0215 or email contactus@dllclegal.com. We typically respond within minutes during business hours.

This article is general information about estate planning in Singapore and is not legal advice. Statutory rules, CPF and insurance nomination procedures and the tax treatment of estates change — confirm the current position with the CPF Board, the Office of the Public Guardian, the Ministry of Law or a lawyer before acting. For advice on your specific matter, consult an Advocate & Solicitor.

Statutory references: Intestate Succession Act 1967 (s 7); Wills Act 1838 (s 6, s 10, s 13); Probate and Administration Act 1934; Guardianship of Infants Act 1934; Mental Capacity Act 2008; Advance Medical Directive Act 1996; Central Provident Fund Act 1953; Insurance Act 1966 (s 132, s 133); Administration of Muslim Law Act 1966 (s 115). Estate duty abolished for deaths on or after 15 February 2008.

Estate Planning in Singapore: The Four Instruments, and What Each One Does Not Cover