Wills, probate, and CPF nomination for expats in Singapore

r/askSingapore death-admin threads keep arriving at the same shock. Singapore banks freeze the accounts until someone produces a Singapore grant of probate or letters of administration, or a foreign grant that has been resealed here, and a Malaysian or UK grant on its own usually won't get them open. Separately, and this is the bit people get wrong in writing, CPF never follows your will. It follows a CPF nomination, or the Public Trustee if you never made one.

The first half of this is what to set up while you can. The second half is what the family does after a death to get Singapore money moving. Planning for a loss of capacity while you're still alive runs on a different rail again, and that's LPA and AMD. Certificates, NEA permits and the repatriation logistics sit in death and repatriation.

Four rails, and none of them talk to each other

Make a Singapore-aware will while you still can

If you hold local bank accounts, SRS, or an interest in property here, a will that's valid under Singapore's Wills Act and names an executor who can actually act in Singapore saves your family months. Not an afternoon of paperwork. Months.

The Wills Act rules are short:

• You have to be 21 or over.
• It must be in writing, signed at the end by you in front of at least two witnesses who are present at the same time, and they then sign it in front of you.
• Don't use a beneficiary, or a beneficiary's husband or wife, as a witness. The will still stands, but the gift to that person is void, unless the will had enough other witnesses without them.
• Marriage revokes an existing will, unless the will says it was made in contemplation of that marriage. If you're getting married here, redo the will afterwards or word it for the marriage.

A will signed in another country isn't automatically useless here. Singapore treats it as properly executed if it followed the law of the place it was signed, or of your domicile, habitual residence or nationality. There's still a practical reason to have an English-language will that names an executor. If you die domiciled outside Singapore, that executor can apply for probate without the affidavit of foreign law that most foreign-domicile applications need.

Tell your executor where the original is, and register its details with the Wills Registry, which the Singapore Academy of Law runs at wills.sal.sg. The registry only releases information to you, your lawyers, or your next of kin and beneficiaries after your death. Until 31 March 2027, a participating law firm can register your will and deposit a digital copy at no charge.

Three more things are worth keeping somewhere your family can find them. A one-page asset map covering banks, insurers and whoever administers your employer equity. Digital copies of passports, marriage and birth certificates, and pass cards. And the name of counsel who understands foreign domicile affidavits, because that's what the filing turns into when the deceased lived somewhere other than Singapore.

What can pass without a grant

Not everything waits for probate. The courts list CPF money, property held as joint tenants with no outstanding mortgage, and some insurance policies with nominations as assets that may be distributed without a grant.

• Joint bank accounts. DBS freezes a joint account once it's told about the death, until the surviving holder comes into a branch with instructions.
• Small balances. The Public Trustee's Office says next of kin may approach the bank directly for an account with less than $5,000, and CDP directly for shares worth $5,000 or less.
• Small estates. For an estate of $50,000 or less, the Public Trustee may administer it without a grant. It won't act if, among other things, there are debts, disputes between beneficiaries, shares in unlisted companies, a business interest, pending lawsuits, insurance policies with nominated beneficiaries, or a court application already filed. Its fee comes out of the estate, starting at 6.5% of the first $5,000, with a $15 minimum.

After a death: getting Singapore accounts released

A Malaysian, UK or Australian grant that settled everything at home will often still need a Singapore court step before a local bank moves. DBS says it plainly: it needs a grant issued by the Singapore court, or the foreign grant resealed in the Singapore court. A will on its own doesn't get you past the counter, even a clear and uncontested one.

Don't wait for the home-country probate to finish first. DBS warns that getting the grant can take 2 to 6 months, and nothing in Singapore moves until somebody files.

What to gather first

1. The death certificate. A death in Singapore produces a digital death certificate. A death abroad means the foreign certificate, translated into English if it isn't already. DBS, for one, wants every document in English, with anything else translated by an official translator.
2. Passport bio pages for the deceased and for the executor or next of kin.
3. Singapore bank, SRS and brokerage statements showing the account numbers.
4. The original will, or the sealed foreign grant, plus certified copies. The court wants the original, or a sealed certified copy from the foreign court, brought to its Probate Counter by 4.30pm on the next operating day after you file.
5. Marriage and birth certificates linking the applicant to the deceased.

CPF isn't on this list because the family doesn't claim it through the estate. When a citizen or PR dies, ICA tells CPF Board, and the Board contacts the nominees within 10 working days of being told. If a PR died abroad, the family reports the death to ICA first. If the deceased was a foreigner who still had a CPF account, report the death to CPF Board yourself.

If the executor lives abroad, ask each bank how it handles that. DBS, for one, accepts a posted request with notarised copies of the death certificate, the grant and the executor's passport, plus its own signed forms. If papers need notarising or apostilling in Singapore, see document apostille.

Doing it yourself, or with a lawyer

The courts say you don't need a lawyer to file for a Grant of Probate, and the Probate eService walks a named sole executor through it online. The catch is its eligibility list. The deceased must have been a Singapore citizen or PR, domiciled in Singapore, died in Singapore and not been Muslim, with an English-language will and an estate of no more than $2 million. Most expat estates miss at least one of those, which means filing in person at the Service Bureau or through a lawyer.

If you're resealing, or the deceased was domiciled abroad, a Singapore probate lawyer is the realistic next step, mainly because of the domicile and foreign-law evidence. The Public Trustee won't help with resealing a foreign grant either, and tells families to engage a Singapore lawyer. Grants are issued electronically, and if a bank wants a certified true copy, you apply to the court for one.

Foreign grants: reseal, or start again here

Resealing is the shortcut. Under section 47 of the Probate and Administration Act, a grant from a probate court anywhere in the Commonwealth can be resealed by the Singapore court, and once sealed it works here as if Singapore had granted it. Hong Kong grants made on or after 1 July 1997 qualify too, because Hong Kong has been declared under the Act.

There's a domicile catch. If the deceased wasn't domiciled in the place whose court issued the grant, Singapore will only reseal it if it's a grant the Singapore court would have made itself, and the court can ask for evidence of domicile. Domicile means where the person intended their permanent home to be, not their nationality or where they happened to live.

The foreign-law affidavit has two exceptions: an executor named in an English-language will applying for probate, and an application limited to Singapore land where land is the whole Singapore estate. Electronic foreign grants have their own rule. You file the version downloaded from the foreign court's website, with a solicitor's certification on a cover page.

The restricted-property clock

If a foreign person inherits an interest in restricted residential property, the executor has 5 years from the date of death to dispose of it under the Residential Property Act. Foreign person means anyone who isn't a Singapore citizen, so PRs are caught too, and the household that assumes it's exempt often isn't.

Restricted property is mostly landed: terrace, semi-detached and detached houses, townhouses and cluster houses outside an approved condo development, landed homes at Sentosa Cove, and vacant residential land. Private condo units and flats aren't restricted property, so a foreigner can hold them without SLA approval.

There are two ways round a forced sale. The foreign beneficiary can apply to SLA to keep the property, and SLA assesses that on the same criteria as a purchase, looking, among other things, for at least five years as a PR and an exceptional economic contribution to Singapore. Or the executor can apply for more time. Both applications carry a non-refundable fee. If you own landed property, raise it early in estate planning rather than leaving your executor to find it.

CPF nomination is free, and separate from your will

If you're a PR and contributions have started, nominate now. You do it online through Singpass and can name up to 15 nominees, who don't need a CPF account themselves. You'll also need two witnesses aged at least 21 who hold Singpass, and neither you nor any nominee can be one. Each witness gets an SMS or email and has seven calendar days to confirm, or the nomination expires and you start again.

A nomination covers your Ordinary, Special, MediSave and Retirement Account savings, any CPF LIFE premium balance and discounted Singtel shares. CPF savings aren't part of your estate, which is why a will can't touch them. It doesn't cover property bought with CPF, which goes through the estate, or CPF Investment Scheme investments, which the executor claims from the product provider or agent bank.

Two rules catch people out:

• Marriage revokes your CPF nomination. Divorce doesn't. The nomination you made as a single PR is gone the day you marry, and one naming an ex-spouse survives a divorce until you change it.
• Nominees under 18 aren't paid directly. CPF Board sends their share to the Public Trustee, with a narrow exception for widows. The Public Trustee invests it and pays it out at 18, less a fee taken from the interest it earned.

Skip the nomination and CPF doesn't quietly pass to whoever your will names. It goes to the Public Trustee, which can take up to six months to work out which family members can claim and deducts a fee on a sliding scale, starting at 2.4% of the first $1,000. It then distributes under the Intestate Succession Act, which sends money and other movable assets by the law of the place you were domiciled. For a PR whose permanent home is still somewhere else, that can mean your home country's inheritance rules decide who gets your CPF.

EP and S Pass holders usually have no CPF at all, because employers only have to contribute for citizens and PRs, which is exactly why this section gets skipped. But the same household frequently includes a PR spouse who does have an account. "We're expats, so nomination doesn't apply to us" is how an avoidable Public Trustee file gets opened.

Witness briefing, nominee-conflict traps and the amend-after-marriage housekeeping all live in CPF nomination, Singpass and witnesses.

Tax: no estate duty, but SRS has a rule

Singapore has no estate duty for deaths on or after 15 February 2008, so there's no Singapore inheritance tax bill waiting for your family. Your home country may tax the estate on its own terms, which is a question for a tax adviser there.

SRS is the one with a Singapore tax rule. When an SRS member dies, IRAS treats the whole balance as withdrawn on the date of death. Up to $400,000 is tax-exempt, in full if the 10-year withdrawal period hadn't started and adjusted if it had, and 50% of anything above that is taxable. The account itself is covered in SRS as a foreigner.

Leaving Singapore, or giving up PR

The full CPF cash-out only happens once you're no longer a citizen or PR, and at that point the account has to close. If you renounce and don't close it yourself, CPF closes it automatically the following month, and the money stops earning CPF interest, getting only a bank-like concession rate until 31 March 2027. Applying online with Singpass is the fastest route. From abroad without Singpass, your documents need certifying at a Singapore Overseas Mission, or notarising and apostilling if you live in an Apostille Convention country. Processing averages about 12 weeks.

So close the account and move the money to a bank while your Singpass still works. The details are on CPF on leaving Singapore, with the step-by-step in CPF withdrawal when leaving and the PR side in re-entry permits and PR from overseas.