Intestacy: Applying for Letters of Administration in Singapore

If a loved one has passed away leaving behind property (known as the estate), but without a will, his or her estate may only be administered and distributed in accordance with Singapore’s intestacy laws under the Intestate Succession Act (ISA) for non-Muslims, or in accordance with Muslim law for Muslims.

This article discusses the process under the ISA for administering the estate of a loved one who has passed away without leaving behind a will (i.e. died intestate).

What is a Grant of Letters of Administration?

In order to start administering a loved one’s estate, you are required to first apply to the court for a Grant of Letters of Administration.

This is a legal document that authorises you to be the administrator of the deceased’s estate, and administer and distribute the estate according to the ISA.

If the deceased has left behind a will, you generally should apply for a Grant of Probate instead.

Read our other article for the differences between a Grant of Letters of Administration and Grant of Probate.

If the estate is worth less than $50,000 (among other conditions), you can make an online application to the Public Trustee via their eService for them to administer the deceased’s estate instead. This option is ideal if you are unfamiliar with the legal and administrative aspects of estate management, or simply want to save the costs and time associated with applying for the Letters of Administration. 

When Do I Need to Apply for a Grant of Letters of Administration?

Generally, you have to apply for a Grant of Letters of Administration when the deceased person passes away without leaving behind a will, and you wish to administer and distribute his or her estate.

However, you are also required to apply for a Grant of Letters of Administration where the deceased left behind a will, but there is a failure of executors in any of the following situations:

• There is no executor appointed by the will;
• The executor(s) appointed by the will are legally incapable of acting as such, or have renounced their right to act as such;
• The executor(s) passed away before the deceased;
• The executor(s) passed away before obtaining probate, or administering all the deceased’s estate; or
• The executor(s) appointed by the will do not appear and extract probate.

The person empowered by a Grant of Letters of Administration to administer a deceased’s estate is known as the administrator.

In administering the estate, the administrator is required to first pay the debts, liabilities, taxes, funeral and other expenses of the deceased. Afterwards, the administrator will distribute the balance of the estate according to any applicable laws such as the ISA.

Who Can and Cannot be an Administrator?

According to section 18 of the Probate and Administration Act (PAA), the court may grant Letters of Administration to the deceased’s spouse, next-of-kin, or any of them individually or jointly.

Particularly, the ISA sets out 7 classes of persons who, in descending order of priority, are entitled to apply for this grant. They are the deceased’s:

1. Spouse;
2. Children;
3. Parents;
4. Siblings;
5. Nephews and nieces;
6. Grandparents; and
7. Uncles and aunts.

Infants (i.e. persons below 21 years old) and persons who are mentally disordered are not allowed to be administrators. Where a person entitled to a grant is an infant, such a grant will be made to his or her guardian.

Similarly, where a person entitled to a grant is mentally disordered, such a grant will be made to the person who has been legally entrusted with the mentally disordered person’s affairs.

How Many Administrators Can be Appointed?

The court may appoint up to 4 administrators.

If one or more of the beneficiaries of the estate is below 21 years of age, then either at least 2 administrators, or a trust corporation, must be appointed.

Where there are multiple administrators, they will act jointly to administer the estate. This means that they will have to act unanimously at all times.

What If I Do Not Wish to be an Administrator?

If you are one of the persons who are entitled to apply for, or may become entitled to, a Grant of Letters of Administration but do not wish to do or be so, you may renounce your right to apply for the grant.

You may renounce your right to apply for this grant:

• Orally (either by you or your lawyer) at the hearing for a Grant of Letters of Administration; or
• In signed writing (attested by your lawyer or by any person before whom an affidavit may be sworn, such as a Commissioner for Oaths).

How to Apply for a Grant of Letters of Administration

You may apply for a Grant of Letters of Administration yourself by visiting the Lawnet & CrimsonLogic Service Bureau. They will give you the relevant hardcopies of forms needed for your application. These forms are also available online. You are to submit the hardcopies in person at the Service Bureau. The Family Justice Courts have prepared a Probate & Administration Toolkit to assist individuals in doing so.

However, you may also engage a lawyer to assist you in such an application, and typically the lawyer’s legal fees would be covered by the deceased’s estate.

There are a few steps in applying for a Grant of Letters of Administration:

1. Prepare the required documents

To apply for a Grant of Letters of Administration, you will need to submit the following documents:

• Originating Application (Form 162): If you have booked an appointment with the LawNet & CrimsonLogic Service Bureau, you will be asked to provide information on the deceased and the estates.  The Service Bureau will use the information you provided to generate the Originating Application.
• Schedule of Assets (Form 177): This form sets out the deceased’s assets in Singapore and overseas, and any outstanding debts in Singapore secured by mortgage. If you don’t know the full extent of the deceased’s assets, you will need to write to financial institutions to obtain information on these assets (see step 4 below).
• Renunciation of beneficiaries with prior right (Form 166, if applicable): If anyone eligible to apply for the Grant of Letters of Administration wishes to give up that right to do so, they will need to fill in and sign this form.

Supporting documents that you will need when applying for the Grant of Letters of Administration are the certified true copies of the:

• Death certificate of the deceased
• Death certificates of next-of-kin (if applicable)
• Divorce certificate of the deceased (if applicable)
• Foreign grant (if applicable)
• Inheritance certificate (if applicable)

Unless otherwise stated, all forms can be downloaded from the “Probate” section of e-Litigation webpage.

2. Conduct a search for existing caveats and probate applications on the estate

After preparing all your documents, bring them to the LawNet & CrimsonLogic Service Bureau. At the Service Bureau, you will need to conduct a search for existing caveats and probate applications on the deceased’s estate, or existing claims to the right to administer the deceased’s estate.

You will also need to attach the full and summary reports of the search to your application.

3. Submit your application for a grant

When you are done with the caveat and probate application search, it’s time to submit all your documents to apply for the Grant of Letters of Administration at the Service Bureau. The Service Bureau will use your documents to prepare the following documents and file them on your behalf:

• Originating application
• Probate statement
• Schedule of Assets

If you are applying for the grant more than 6 months after the death of the deceased, give reasons as to why.

After submitting your application, the courts will usually take 1-3 weeks to accept your application. If there are errors in your application, the court will reject your application and state their reasons for doing so. You will have to correct the errors and re-file the documents.

You can be notified by SMS once your application has been approved, so you can go back to the Service Bureau to collect your approved documents.

4. File the Supporting Affidavit and Administration Oath

The next step is to prepare and file the Supporting Affidavit (Form 163) and Administration Oath (Form 167). These documents must be filed within 14 days of the filing of your application.

In the Supporting Affidavit, you will confirm that the details of the application are correct. On the other hand, the Administration Oath is for you to undertake that you will faithfully administer the deceased’s estate. Both documents need to be sworn or affirmed before a Commissioner for Oaths.

Preparation of the Schedule of Assets

The Schedule of Assets (Form 177) is to be filed with the Supporting Affidavit. If you need to ascertain what assets the deceased had in order to fill in the Schedule of Assets, you will have to write to banks, the CPF Board and any other financial institutions.

You should only write to these institutions after your application for the Grant of Letters of Administration has been accepted. This is because these institutions usually require a certified true copy of the court-approved originating application before they will give you any information.

However, it can take a few weeks or months to hear from all the financial institutions. If you are unable to get all the information from them by the deadline for filing the Supporting Affidavit and Administration Oath, you should file these two documents first without the Schedule of Assets.

Then, once you have heard from all the financial institutions, you can file the complete Schedule of Assets, together with a supplementary affidavit that also needs to be sworn or affirmed before a Commissioner for Oaths.

If there are no issues with the application, the court should approve the Grant of Letters of Administration and grant you an “Order in Terms”. You will know the outcome of your application when you receive a letter from the court requesting for you to extract the grant.

5. Issuance/Extraction of the grant

Once the court approves your application, it will issue the Grant of Letters of Administration electronically, which authorises you to manage the deceased’s estate.

If you require a sealed or certified true copy of the Grant of Letters of Administration (for example, for banks, insurance companies, or other institutions), your lawyer can request the extraction of the sealed copy. If you are self-represented, you must go to the LawNet & CrimsonLogic Service Bureau to file the request. In such cases, it is common to conduct a final caveat and probate search to confirm that there are no caveats or competing applications before obtaining the sealed copy of the grant.

How Does the Administrator Distribute the Estate?

The following chart illustrates how the administrator may distribute the deceased’s estate. There are 9 simple rules outlined in section 7 of the ISA. After all owed taxes and debts are paid, the assets are distributed in the following order:

SURVIVOR	ABSENT	WHO GETS WHAT
Spouse	Children, parents	Spouse gets everything
Spouse, children		Spouse gets half, children gets the other half in equal portions
Children	Spouse	Children get everything in equal portions. Grandchildren can claim their parent’s share in equal portions if their parent is dead
Spouse, parents	Children	Spouse gets half, parents get half in equal portions
Parents	Spouse, children	Parents get everything in equal portions
Brothers and sisters (or children of the deceased brother or sister)	Spouse, children, parents	Brothers and sisters get equal portions. Their children can claim their share for them in equal portions if they are deceased
Grandparents	Spouse, children, parents, brothers and sisters or children of such brothers and sisters	Grandparents take the estate in equal portions
Uncles and aunts	Spouse, children, parents, brothers and sisters or children of such brothers and sisters, grandparents	Uncles and aunts take the estate in equal portions
None	Everyone	Government takes everything

If the deceased has property overseas and died intestate, immovable property like houses should be distributed according to the law of the relevant country where the property is located in.

On the other hand, movable property like cash may be distributed according to Singapore law.

What If the Deceased Who Died Without a Will was a Muslim, or Died While Overseas?

If the deceased was Muslim

If the deceased who has passed away without a will was a Muslim domiciled in Singapore, the Administration of Muslim Law Act and Syariah law would apply instead.

The appropriate person to apply for the Grant of Letters of Administration, and administer the estate, would then be the person with the highest number of shares in the estate in accordance with the Inheritance Certificate.

The Inheritance Certificate is a document which has to be obtained from the Syariah Court prior to the application for the Grant of Letters of Administration. You can read more about the distribution of estates belonging to deceased Muslims in our other article.

If the deceased died overseas

If the deceased passed away while overseas, you will need to obtain a death certificate issued by the foreign authorities, and an English translation if the death certificate is not in English.

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Losing a loved one can be emotionally draining as it is, and the process of applying for a Grant of Letters of Administration can be complex in the number of steps to complete and documents to submit.

You may wish to get in touch with one of our experienced probate lawyers to assist you with this process.