Do you know that the Amanah Raya Berhad (ARB) has admitted to a RM471 million inheritance problem? They are the public trustee and custodian of this money but rest assured, ARB is not at fault. No dereliction of duty.
Instead, the finger points fully and squarely at the rightful heirs of money and property left behind by the dead who did not leave a Will. Worse, complications set in when the heirs themselves die without writing their own Wills.
According to a story in The New Straits Times (28 Aug 2006), the majority of inheritance cases were not resolved because family members either could not care about sorting out the estate of the deceased or could not agree on the distribution and fought over the assets.
When the original beneficiaries could not be bothered, said ARM chairman Datuk Dusuki Ahmad, the case would become trickier when these original beneficiaries die and the assets are then to be distributed to the next generation of descendants.
“The descendents may not be able to accept the terms of distribution among themselves and this is usually the case when the assets which were considered of little value two or three generations back had now become more valuable with the passing of years,” he said.
Many of the unresolved cases involved Malays who chose not to write a Will (known as Wasiat to the Muslims) because they depended on the Faraid system to distribute and manage their assets after death.
The newspaper article went on to say that though the Faraid system was very systematic in spelling out how the estate should be distributed exactly to living descendants, it did not cover adopted children.
Without a Wasiat, adopted children would get nothing. However, with a Wasiat, the deceased could plan to give one-third of his estate to them.
ARB’s senior marketing and product development manager, Azliah Suhod, said: “Sadly, most people still lack an understanding of the importance of estate administration. But non-Muslims are more aware of the need for a Will and often ensure fair and satisfactory distribution of their assets.”
Note: Some of the unresolved estates go as far back to 1921 when the Department of Public Trustee and Official Administrator was first established by the British colonial administration. This department later became the ARB. The RM471 million from 21,000 unresolved inheritance cases consists of RM141 million cash and some RM330 million non-cash assets.
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