Some people worry about the safety of your infant children\u2019s inheritance upon your passing. This is a genuine concern that needs attention when making a Will. Start by thinking of the role of the executor of your will.<\/p>\n
On the other hard, if a beneficiary is under 21 years of age he\/she does not have legal capacity. Without capacity a minor is\u00a0 unable to provide an executor a Release from his\/her obligations.<\/p>\n
If a Will doesn\u2019t say at what age a beneficiary is able to receive his\/her inheritance it doesn’t matter. It’s the inability to provide a Release that stops a child from receiving his or her inheritance before 21.<\/p>\n
You can find online statements such as \u201cthe guardian holds the inherited assets on behalf of the minor beneficiaries until they attain the age of majority\u201d.\u00a0 Such a statement is wrong.<\/p>\n
It assumes that the executor of a will can simply pay the child\u2019s inheritance to the guardian. Can an executor just do this?<\/p>\n
Some Wills may specifically allow the trustee to pay a gift or bequest to the parent or guardian of a minor beneficiary. There may be clauses that also say that the receipt of the parent or guardian is acceptable in place of a receipt from the minor beneficiary.<\/p>\n
If a Will has such a clause then a trustee does have discretion. The trustee can then just make payment to a parent or guardian. If a Will does not contain such a clause there is no option. The can’t just pay over a child\u2019s inheritance to the child\u2019s parent or Guardian.<\/p>\n
This must be the case. It makes no logically sense otherwise. When one person is appointed as executor of a Will and a different person is appointed as Guardian it makes no sense for the executor to simply pay over the inheritance to the Guardian.<\/p>\n
Just paying a child’s entire inheritance to the Guardian is not an option. If the executor of a Will is just going to pay everything to the Guardian then why didn’t the will maker just appoint the Guardian as executor as well?<\/p>\n
Section 68 of the Probate and Administration Act (https:\/\/sso.agc.gov.sg\/Act\/PAA1934?ProvIds=P111-#pr68) should put an end to any lingering doubts.<\/p>\n
Section 68 says that if a trustee is still holding funds which cannot be distributed immediately because the person entitled to it is unable \u201cto give a discharge\u201d then the trustee can seek the Public Trustee\u2019s consent to \u201cpay those funds to the Public Trustee\u201d.<\/p>\n
A trustee who finds the job too onerous or too much to handle has the legislative option of \u2018passing the buck\u2019 to the Public Trustee.<\/p>\n
Section 68 (2) says that the receipt of the Public Trustee \u201cshall constitute a full and sufficient discharge\u201d.\u00a0 So Section 68 (2) means that a trustee doesn’t have to wait until all beneficiaries are 21 to be discharged from his\/her duties. The Public Trustee can provide the discharge.<\/p>\n
So executors please take note. Do not simply pay a child’s inheritance to his\/her guardian in order to wrap up the estate quickly. If you don’t wish to continue until the child reaches 21 consider paying the inheritance to the Public Trustee. If you pay the child’s inheritance to his\/her guardian and the money is gone before the child reaches 21 you’ll have to answer to the beneficiary.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
14th February 2021<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Infant beneficiaries & the Executor of Will’s role Some people worry about the safety of your infant children\u2019s inheritance upon your passing. This is a genuine concern that needs attention when making a Will. Start by thinking of the role of the executor of your will. On the other hard, if a beneficiary is under […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":602,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-will-making-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ezwills.com.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ezwills.com.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ezwills.com.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ezwills.com.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ezwills.com.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/ezwills.com.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":737,"href":"https:\/\/ezwills.com.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600\/revisions\/737"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ezwills.com.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ezwills.com.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ezwills.com.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ezwills.com.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}