THE PREVAILING WILL
Creating a Will is a crucial step in ensuring the protection and distribution of your assets after you are gone.
However, life is ever-changing, and there may come a time when you need to make amendments to your Will to reflect new circumstances or changes in your family’s dynamics.
While it’s important to have the flexibility to update your Will, it’s equally important to approach these changes cautiously.
One can draw up as many Wills as one likes during one’s lifespan.
Wills should be reviewed after any major life change (e.g. marriage, the birth of a child, divorce or death). Even if no life-changing event has occurred, it is recommended that you review your Will once every 3 – 5 years to ensure that it is still in accordance with what you want.
Amendments to your Will should not be taken lightly. Your family might be faced with dire consequences of any rash decision.
In Singapore, there have been numerous cases of ladies from China acting surreptitiously to siphon off money from older men. Such situations are illustrated below.
Upon his deathbed, Mr X confessed to his wife that he had, six months prior, befriended a woman from China and that the woman had convinced him to make a new Will, leaving all his assets to her.
Being on his deathbed, he regrets his decision and wants to make a new Will so that both his wife and children would get all his assets.
Mr X’s wife called us to explain the situation briefly and then re-directed us to speak to her eldest son as she was too distraught.
Mr X’s elder son informed us that the surviving beneficiaries would be his mother, brother and himself.
However, as he could not obtain his brother’s details on such short notice, he requested his brother’s name to be left out of the Will and include his mother, his two sons and himself.
We explained that we needed to speak to Mr X to seek his instructions and confirm his wishes before preparing his new Will.
We also explained that we required the confirmation from the doctor attending to Mr X with regards to Mr X’s mental capacity.
Mr X’s wife was furious that she had to bear the legal cost of her husband’s folly.
Instead of acting quickly, Mr X’s wife let anger get the better of her and ignored the issue.
We learned that Mr X passed away a week later, and no new Will was done before his demise.
It was confirmed that Mr. X had left all his assets (including all his monies in his Central Provide Fund (CPF)) to the Chinese lady.
We understand that the family was not successful in their attempt to stop the CPF Board from disbursing the funds to the Chinese lady.
In addition, they have also taken up legal proceedings to contest the Will, and the matter is still ongoing.
Such proceedings are extremely lengthy and costly.
All this could have been avoided if Mr X’s wife had not been consumed by her anger and the elder son had not been consumed by greed to usurp his younger brother’s share.
