Wills (Amendment) Act 1992

Status:

Published in Acts Supplement
on 26 Jun 1992

Wills (Amendment) Act 1992 (No. 24 of 1992)

REPUBLIC OF SINGAPORE

GOVERNMENT GAZETTE

ACTS SUPPLEMENT

Published by Authority

NO. 24]

Friday, June 26

[1992

The following Act was passed by Parliament on 29th May 1992 and assented to by the President on 8th June 1992:—

Wills (Amendment) Act 1992

(No. 24 of 1992)

I assent.

WEE KIM WEE

President.

8th June 1992.

Date of Commencement: 26th June 1992

An Act to amend the Wills Act (Chapter 352 of the 1985 Revised Edition) to provide for the formal validity of wills and to restrict the operation of section 9 of that Act.

Be it enacted by the President with the advice and consent of the Parliament of Singapore, as follows:

Short title and commencement

1. This Act may be cited as the Wills (Amendment) Act 1992 and shall come into operation on such date as the Minister may, by notification in the Gazette, appoint.

Amendment of section 2

2. Section 2 of the Wills Act is amended —

(a)

by inserting, immediately before the definition of “will”, the following definition:

“ “internal law”, in relation to any territory or state, means the law which would apply in a case where no question of the law in force in any other territory or state arose;”; and

(b)

by deleting the full-stop at the end of the definition of “personal estate” and substituting a semicolon, and by inserting immediately thereafter the following definition:

“ “state” means a territory or group of territories having its own law of nationality.”.

New section 4A

3. The Wills Act is amended by inserting, immediately after section 4, the following section:

“Rules as to formal validity

4A.—(1) This section shall take effect notwithstanding any other sections of this Act.

(2) A will shall be treated as properly executed if its execution conformed to the internal law in force —

(a)

in the territory where it was executed;

(b)

in the territory where the testator was domiciled at the time —

(i)	when the will was executed; or
(ii)	of his death;

(c)

in the territory where the testator habitually resided at either of the times referred to in paragraph (b); or

(d)

in the state of which the testator was a national at either of the times referred to in paragraph (b).

(3) Without prejudice to subsection (2), the following shall be treated as properly executed:

(a)	a will executed on board a vessel or aircraft of any description, if the execution of the will conformed to the internal law in force in the territory with which, having regard to its registration (if any) and other relevant circumstances, the vessel or aircraft may be taken to have been most closely connected;
(b)	a will so far as it disposes of immovable property, if its execution conformed to the internal law in force in the territory where the property was situated;
(c)	a will so far as it revokes a will which under this Act would be treated as properly executed or revokes a provision which under this Act would be treated as comprised in a properly executed will, if the execution of the later will conformed to any law by reference to which the revoked will or provision would be treated as properly executed;
(d)	a will so far as it exercises a power of appointment, if the execution of the will conformed to the law governing the essential validity of the power.

(4) A will so far as it exercises a power of appointment shall not be treated as improperly executed by reason only that its execution was not in accordance with any formal requirements contained in the instrument creating the power.

(5) In determining for the purposes of this section whether or not the execution of a will conformed to a particular law, regard shall be had to the formal requirements of that law at the time of execution, but this shall not prevent account being taken of an alteration of law affecting wills executed at that time if the alteration enables the will to be treated as properly executed.

(6) Where a law in force outside Singapore falls to be applied in relation to a will, any requirement of that law whereby special formalities are to be observed by testators answering a particular description, or witnesses to the execution of a will are to possess certain qualifications, shall be treated, notwithstanding any rule of that law to the contrary, as a formal requirement only.

(7) The construction of a will shall not be altered by reason of any change in the testator’s domicile after the execution of the will.

(8) Where under this section the internal law in force in any territory or state is to be applied in the case of a will, but there are in force in that territory or state two or more systems of internal law relating to the formal validity of wills, the system to be applied shall be ascertained as follows:

(a)	if there is in force throughout the territory or state a rule indicating which of those systems can properly be applied in the case in question, that rule shall be followed; or
(b)	if there is no such rule, the system shall be that with which the testator was most closely connected at the relevant time, and for this purpose the relevant time is the time of the testator’s death where the matter is to be determined by reference to circumstances prevailing at his death, and the time of execution of the will in any other case.

(9) This section shall not apply to a will of a testator who died before the commencement of the Wills (Amendment) Act 1992 and shall apply to a will of a testator who dies after that time whether the will was executed before or after that time.”.

Amendment of section 9

4. The Wills Act is amended by renumbering section 9 as subsection (1) of that section, and by inserting immediately thereafter the following subsections:

“(2) The attestation of a will by a person to whom or to whose spouse there is given or made any disposition as is described in subsection (1) shall be disregarded for the purposes of that subsection if the will is duly executed without his attestation and without that of any other such person.

(3) Subsection (2) shall apply to the will of any person dying after the passing of the Wills (Amendment) Act 1992, whether executed before or after the passing of that Act.”.

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