Intestate Succession Act

(CHAPTER 146)

(Original Enactment: Act 7 of 1967)

REVISED EDITION 1985

(30th March 1987)

An Act to make provision for the distribution of intestate estates.

[2nd June 1967]

Short title

1. This Act is the Intestate Succession Act 1967.

Interpretation

2.—(1) In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires —

“charitable company” means a charity which is a company or other body corporate;

“charitable purposes” means purposes which are exclusively charitable according to the law of Singapore;

“charity” means any institution, corporate or not, which is established for charitable purposes and is subject to the control of the High Court in exercise of the Court’s jurisdiction with respect to charities;

“charity trustees” means the persons having the general control and management of the administration of a charity;

“Commissioner” means the Commissioner of Charities appointed under section 3;

“company” means a company incorporated or registered under any law in force in Singapore or elsewhere;

“document” includes information recorded in any form, and, in relation to information recorded otherwise than in legible form —

(a)	any reference to its production shall be construed as a reference to the furnishing of a copy of it in legible form; and
(b)	any reference to the furnishing of a copy of, or extract from, it shall accordingly be construed as a reference to the furnishing of a copy of, or extract from, it in legible form;

“exempt charity” means a charity specified in the Schedule;

“financial year” —

(a)	in relation to a charity which is a company, shall be construed in accordance with the Companies Act [Cap. 50]; and
(b)	in relation to any other charity, shall be construed in accordance with regulations made under section 13(2);

“gross income”, in relation to a charity, means its gross recorded receipts from all sources;

“institution” includes any trust or undertaking;

“trusts”, in relation to a charity, means the provisions establishing it as a charity and regulating its purposes and administration, whether those provisions take effect by way of trust or not, and in relation to other institutions has a corresponding meaning.

(2) References in this Act to a charity whose income from all sources does not in aggregate amount to more than a specified amount shall be construed —

(a)	by reference to the gross receipts of the charity; or
(b)	if the Commissioner so determines, by reference to the amount which he estimates to be the likely amount of those receipts,

but without (in either case) bringing into account anything for the annual value of land occupied by the charity apart from the pecuniary income (if any) received from that land; and any question as to the application of any such reference to a charity shall be determined by the Commissioner, whose decision shall be final.

(3) The Commissioner may direct that, for all or any of the purposes of this Act, an institution established for any special purposes of or in connection with a charity (being charitable purposes) shall be treated as forming part of that charity or as forming a distinct charity.

Appointment of Commissioner of Charities and other officers

3.—(1) The Minister may appoint —

(a)	an officer to be known as the Commissioner of Charities who shall have such functions as are conferred on him by this Act; and
(b)	a Deputy Commissioner and such Assistant Commissioners of Charities or such other officers as he may think necessary to assist the Commissioner in the proper discharge of his functions.

(2) The Deputy Commissioner of Charities shall have and may exercise all the powers, duties and functions of the Commissioner except those which are exercisable under sections 24, 25 and 30.

Functions of Commissioner

4.—(1) The Commissioner shall have the general function of promoting the effective use of charitable resources by encouraging the development of better methods of administration, by giving charity trustees information on any matter affecting the charity and by investigating and checking abuses.

(2) It shall be the general object of the Commissioner so to act in the case of any charity (unless it is a matter of altering its purposes) as best to promote and make effective the work of the charity in meeting the needs designated by its trusts; but the Commissioner shall not have power to act in the administration of a charity.

(3) The Commissioner shall, as soon as possible after the end of every year, make to the Minister a report on his operations during that year, and the Minister shall present a copy of the report to Parliament.

Registration of charities

5.—(1) The Commissioner shall continue to keep a register of charities in which shall be entered such particulars as he may from time to time determine of any charity registered therein.

(2) There shall be entered in the register every charity not excepted by subsection (4); and a charity so excepted may be entered in the register at the request of the charity, but (whether or not it was excepted at the time of registration) may at any time, and shall at the request of the charity, be removed from the register.

(3) Any institution which no longer appears to the Commissioner to be a charity shall be removed from the register with effect, where the removal is due to any change in its purposes or trusts, from the date of that change; and there shall also be removed from the register any charity which ceases to exist or does not operate.

(4) The following charities are not required to be registered:

(a)	any charity specified in the Schedule; and
(b)	any charity which is excepted by regulations made under this Act.

(5) Any application to the Commissioner for a charity to be registered shall be accompanied with copies of its trusts (or, if the trusts are not set out in any document, particulars of them) and such other documents or information as the Commissioner may require for the purpose of the application.

(6) It shall be the duty of —

(a)

the charity trustees of any charity which is not registered nor excepted from registration to apply for it to be registered, and to supply the documents and information required by subsection (5), within 3 months after its establishment or such longer period as the Commissioner may, in his discretion, allow; and

(b)

the charity trustees (or last charity trustees) of any institution which is for the time being registered to notify the Commissioner if it ceases to exist, or if there is any change in its trusts, or in its particulars entered in the register, and to furnish the Commissioner with particulars of any such change and copies of any new trusts or alterations of the trusts, within 7 days after such cessation or change or such longer period as the Commissioner may, in his discretion, allow,

and any person who makes default in carrying out any of the duties imposed by this subsection shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $5,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year or to both and, in the case of a continuing offence, to a further fine not exceeding $50 for every day or part thereof during which the offence continues after conviction, and the Commissioner may by order require that person to make good that default.

(7) The register (including entries cancelled when institutions are removed from the register) shall be open to public inspection at all reasonable times, except in so far as regulations otherwise provide.

(8) The register of charities may be prepared and kept in such manner as the Commissioner may think fit, including in electronic form in a computer.

(9) Where any information contained in the register is not in documentary form, subsection (7) shall be construed as requiring the information to be available for public inspection in legible form at all reasonable times.

Persons held to be similarly related to deceased

6. For the purposes of distribution —

(a)	there shall be no distinction between those who are related to a person deceased through his father and those who are related to him through his mother nor between those who were actually born in his lifetime and those who at the date of his death were only conceived in the womb but who have subsequently been born alive; and
(b)	those related to a person deceased by the half blood shall rank immediately after those of the whole blood related to him in the same degree.

Power of Commissioner to require change of charity’s name

7.—(1) The Commissioner may, with respect to a charity to which this subsection applies, give a direction requiring the name of the charity to be changed, within such period as is specified in the direction, to such other name as the charity trustees may determine with the approval of the Commissioner.

(2) Subsection (1) shall apply to a charity if —

(a)

it is a registered charity and its name (referred to in this Act as the registered name) is the same as, or is in the opinion of the Commissioner too like, the name, at the time when the registered name was entered in the register in respect of the charity, of any other charity (whether registered or not);

(b)

the name of the charity is in the opinion of the Commissioner likely to mislead the public as to the true nature of —

(i)	the purposes of the charity as set out in its trusts; or
(ii)	the activities which the charity carries on under its trusts in pursuit of those purposes;

(c)

the name of the charity includes any word or expression which in the opinion of the Commissioner is likely to mislead the public in any respect as to the status of the charity;

(d)

the name of the charity is in the opinion of the Commissioner likely to give the impression that the charity is connected in some way with the Government or any public authority, or with any other body of persons or any individual, when it is not so connected; or

(e)

the name of the charity is in the opinion of the Commissioner offensive,

and any reference in this subsection to the name of a charity is, in relation to a registered charity, a reference to the name by which it is registered.

(3) Any direction given by virtue of subsection (2)(a) shall be given within 12 months of the time when the registered name was entered in the register in respect of the charity.

(4) Any direction given under this section with respect to a charity shall be given to the charity trustees; and on receiving any such direction the charity trustees shall give effect to it notwithstanding anything in the trusts of the charity.

(5) Where the name of any charity is changed under this section, it shall be the duty of the charity trustees to notify the Commissioner, within 7 days after such change or such longer period as the Commissioner may, in his discretion, allow, of the new name of the charity and of the date on which the change occurred.

[26/2001 wef 01/03/2002]

(6) A change of name by a charity under this section shall not affect any rights or obligations of the charity; and any legal proceedings that might have been continued or commenced by or against it in its former name may be continued or commenced by or against it in its new name.

(7) Any reference in this section to the charity trustees of a charity shall, in relation to a charity which is a company, be read as a reference to the directors of the company.

(8) Where any direction is given under this section with respect to a charity which is a company, the direction shall be taken to require the directors of the company to take the necessary steps to effect the change of the name of the company, including applying to the Registrar of Companies for the reservation and approval of the new name under section 27 or 378 of the Companies Act [Cap. 50], as the case may be.

(9) Nothing in this section shall apply to an exempt charity.

Special provision if intestate leaves lawful widows

8. If any person so dying intestate leaves surviving him more than one wife, such wives shall share among them equally the share that the wife of the intestate would have been entitled to, had the intestate left only one wife surviving him.

Children’s advancement not to be taken into account

9. Where a distributive share of the property of a person dying intestate is claimed by a child or any descendant of a child of that person, no money or other property which the intestate may during his life have given, paid or settled to or for the advancement of the child by whom or by whose descendant the claim is made shall be taken into account in estimating such distributive share.

Application to cases of partial intestacy

10. Where any person dies leaving a will beneficially disposing of part of his property, the provisions of this Act shall have effect as respects the part of his property not so disposed of, subject to the provisions contained in the will:

Provided that the personal representative shall, subject to his rights and powers for the purposes of administration, be a trustee for the persons entitled under this Act in respect of the part of the estate not expressly disposed of unless it appears by the will that the personal representative is entitled to take that part beneficially.

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