Borneo Post with the expert help of Rockwills Trustee Bhd, the leading specialist in estate planning having pioneered wills and trust 24 years ago, is publishing a regular Q&A column on estate planning. It will feature questions which readers have in mind but don’t know who to ask:
Question 1: My question is, does a trustee company such as Rockwills Trustee Bhd provide the service to review a will written personally by client?
Rockwills Answer: Generally, trustee companies do not offer reviewing of wills as a service. In our case, our estate planner will study your estate planning needs and then suggest what the best plan is for you.
Most people who do their wills initially are not aware of what they really want to achieve in addition to the pitfalls in planning succession.
For those who do their own will, the usual case is to do a simple one and in consequence miss out a lot of issues they need to think about. They may even draft instructions that are contradictory or ambiguous – thereby rendering the will invalid or with unhappy solutions.
For example, many may draft leaving gaps in how the estate should be distributed or how debts should be settled or leave properties to be jointly owned by their children which can provide the grounds for dispute in future. What is needed is a well-planned Will that is practical and well suited to the family’s needs.
We have once come across a will that named the wife as the beneficiary with the children as substitute beneficiaries in the event his wife does not survive him. However, due to careless planning, the wife was the only executor appointed. This implies that even if the children were to inherit his estate if his wife does not survives him, there is no executor available to carry out the administration work of the estate.
Therefore, proper planning requires one to see further with good advice so as to make well informed estate planning decisions. A well trained estate planner such as those from Rockwills can provide such advice with home visits at your convenience too.
Question 2: I’ve heard that a will must be kept in a closed envelope sealed with wax, otherwise it is not valid. Is this true?
Rockwills Answer: Wax sealing a document is an antiquated practice to show that the envelope was not opened by anyone before reaching the intended recipient. Nowadays, the use of wax sealing is more for ceremonial purposes, not to validate wills. Wax sealing a will is not required under the Wills Act 1959 for the will to be valid in the eyes of the law, although some still continue the practice of wax sealing the will to prevent tempering.
To be honest, wax sealing is not a very effective method to prevent tempering and preserving confidentiality particularly if it can be broken and resealed without anyone being any wiser if the original one affixing the seal is no longer around to affirm affixation. Eventually, someone will still have to break the seal in order to find out who has been appointed as the executor in the will.
We suggest that you should look to keep the will at a proper Will Custody Centre to have peace of mind as it is our experience that many who keep their own wills often misplace these causing distress to the family after demise.
Such custody service ensures that your will is confidential. The facilities that are provided by a proper Will Custody Centre can include measures to prevent tampering and at the same time can be found when it is needed.
In the case of our Wills Custody Services, all wills are kept centralised in a vault with industrial grade bank vault door, with fire and flood proof features, room humidification control system to preserve our clients’ wills, page by page bar/QR coding with security stamping to prevent tampering and 24-hour surveillance to ensure utmost security.
This Q&A Column in published as a joint public service and educational initiative with Rockwills Trustee Bhd. Please email your questions related to Estate Planning to [email protected] or Rockwills’ training and business development assistant general manager Sam Chan ([email protected]).