In the Malaysian context of estate planning for non-Muslims, a Will is probably one of the most useful pieces of document a person can ever have.
A Will is a wish list not of things you want to acquire but a wish list of things you have and want to give away.
With a Will, you are able to express how and to whom you want to give away your assets when you die.
By the way, I hope you’ll not mind if I am so direct with you. I shall not use euphemisms such as “passing on” or “passing away” or “no longer around” because dying and death are inevitable. Eventually, we have to face them straight on.
In an earlier article, I did mention that a person who dies without a Will (the legal term is intestate), his estate shall be divided according to the Distribution Act 1958. (This Act itself was amended in 1997 but for convenience, we’ll just refer to the whole Act as DA 1958.)
The DA 1958 is just one of the problems an intestate will face: you have no control over the distribution to your beneficiaries. The law simply takes over.
Moreover, without a Will, you face additional potential hurdles like:
a) getting your beneficiaries to agree on someone right to be the Administrator of your estate. It is a thankless job, by the way, fraught with unexpected twists and turns, much like those Chinese serials you see on TV;
b) potential tussle between relatives to take care of your minor children. Tussle may mean wanting to take care or not wanting to take care of them. So, be careful;
c) costly delays in the distribution process because beneficiaries may not agree on many things;
d) getting an administration bond from two guarantors who must each have a net worth that is about equivalent to the size of your estate;
e) the risk of the Administrator absconding or mismanaging the estate during the distribution process. The question of trustworthiness or recklessness comes in;
f) no protection for your step-children and partners. Also there is no protection for aged relatives that were close to you.
This is just a summary of the practical problems that the family of an intestate person is likely to face. All these problems are man-made but many of them can be overcome easily with a Will. If you want some peace of mind, you should make the first step by planning your estate now.