INHERITANCE CLAIMS IN S'PORE ARE OPAQUE AND BADLY MISMANAGED!

Dear Editor,

I am writing to further elaborate on the unreliability of our "Public
Trustee" as highlighted by a ST article on 9 Dec 15: Public Trustee Office
refuse to return CPF money due to lack of WW2 documentation reporting on the
predicament of 3 sisters in claiming the estate of their late grandmother
which they eventually gave up and there are no laws regulating how those
monies should be handled.

My late father, Mr P.M. Pereira who passed away in 2010, has placed me in a
similar but more complicated and unexplained situation on the stance of our
so-called "Public Trustee". My late father converted to islam more than a
decade ago and the consequences were clearly not explained to him by the
muslim converts' association of s'pore, in that his estates would be
distributed under some "hanbali" law.

Shortly after my late father divorced my mother, he married an Indonesian
woman whose marriage is not recognized by the islamic religious council of
s'pore (adding to the complication). Hence, my late father is deemed single
with no inheritors (as his entire family is catholic) under the "hanbali"
law. To my understanding, his estates will either be seized by muis or the
"Public Trustee" and distributed under Intestate.

However, I was shocked to learn that my late father's devious sisters who
were non-muslims, had obtained a district court order laying hands on
$150,000 of my late father's assets from NTUC Income and Prudential! I later
found out they had falsely declared to the police and court that my late
father had no other surviving kin and they would like his estates to be
distributed under civil law.

This is very flawed on 3 counts, firstly, the incompetent courts and police
should have made more inquiries if my late father indeed had no more
surviving kin from the population registry. Second, the monies should have
been surrendered to the "tabung amal aidilfitri trust fund" in view of my
late father's newfound religious status. Lastly, the monies should never have
gone to my aunts as the biological child of a divorcee is always first in
line according to civil inheritance.

I think its time we draw attention to the opaque way that our civil service
has been handling our queries all these while. I noticed from the hansard
that only former MP Lee Li Lian raised this issue once and did not follow up
on it. Currently, my case is that my late father's remaining CPF monies of
$5000 is till stuck at IPTO as they do not know how to react to appeals from
1 of the Marine Parade MPs of my greedy aunts demanding the immediate release
of my late father's monies, this in spite of already having previously
cheated $150,000 and getting away with it!

Alison
A.S.S. Contributor