We plan for death with insurance and a will. Far fewer of us plan for the in-between: being alive, but no longer able to make our own decisions.

A stroke, accident, or dementia can take away your mental capacity in an instant. And here’s what catches families off guard: even your spouse or children can’t simply step in to manage your money or your care. Without the right document in place, no one has the legal authority to act for you.

That document is the Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA), and making one is now easier and cheaper than ever.

Here’s everything you need to know, including the exact steps to make one.

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Estate planning is almost always an afterthought.

Most of us spend our working lives focused on earning, saving, and growing what we have. We rarely stop to think about what happens to it all when we’re no longer around. But we don’t build wealth just for ourselves. We build it for the people we love.

And if the basics of estate planning aren’t done properly, your money may not reach the people you intended. It can be tied up for months, eaten into by avoidable costs, or distributed by a formula the law decides for you.

The good news is that this is more straightforward than most people think. A lot of it can now be done online, and several of the key tools are free or close to it. This guide walks you through the whole picture, from the simple nominations everyone should make to wills, trusts, and planning for the years when you may not be able to decide for yourself.

One quick note before we start. This guide covers estate planning under Singapore’s civil law, which applies to non-Muslims. If you’re Muslim, your estate is governed by Muslim law instead, and the rules around who inherits work quite differently, so parts of this guide won’t apply to your situation.

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What happens to your money, your home, and even your medical decisions if you pass away or lose your mental capacity without the right paperwork in place?

For a lot of Singaporeans, the answer is “I’m not sure,” and that gap shows up in the numbers below. 

The reassuring part is that the fixes are mostly simple, and several are free.

Here are the key statistics on inheritance and estate planning in Singapore. We’ve leaned on official government data wherever possible, and used survey data for the things no government agency tracks. 

Getting these basics right, alongside the right protection for your family, is what stops your hard work from going to the wrong place.

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FinSnap is a free Google Sheets and Excel template that captures your entire financial life in one file: who you are, what you earn and spend, what you own and owe, how you’re insured, what you’re working towards, and what your family needs to know if something happens to you.

You don’t need to subscribe to anything. The download link goes to a public Google Sheet. Make a copy, and it’s yours.

Download FinSnap.

(You don’t need to request access. Just make a copy or download it as an Excel file.)

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Trusts have a reputation for being only for the ultra-rich.

It’s a fair assumption, but no longer true.

With more Singaporeans building up CPF, property, insurance, and investments, a trust can be relevant to ordinary families too, in the right situations.

A trust is powerful, but it isn’t free, and for most people the basics of estate planning do the job at a fraction of the cost. So the real question isn’t “what is a trust”, it’s “do I actually need one”. This guide will help you decide.

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Most of us spend far more energy thinking about life than about what happens after it.

But even if you’ve built up savings, bought insurance, and paid down the mortgage for the people you love, there’s one piece that often gets left on the to-do list.

The will.

Without it, you don’t get the final say on who receives what. The law decides for you, and it may not decide the way you’d want.

In this guide, we’ll cover what a will does, the requirements to make yours valid, what it costs, and the things it quietly can’t cover.

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Dying is hard enough to think about. Dying without a will is the part almost no one plans for, mostly because you will never be the one left dealing with it.

But your family will. And the version of events where you left no instructions is slower, costlier, and more stressful for them than it needs to be.

This article is about what actually happens in that situation. Not just who inherits, but the real-world process your loved ones have to go through to unlock your assets: whose job it becomes, how long it takes, what happens to your CPF, HDB flat, and savings, and what it ends up costing them.

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Every Singaporean and Permanent Resident has a CPF account, and the savings inside it build up quietly over a working lifetime.

What most people don’t realise is that those savings aren’t treated like the cash in your bank account, while you’re alive or after you’re gone.

Making a CPF nomination might feel like admin you’ll get to eventually. But it’s one of the simplest and most important steps in proper estate planning, it’s free, and it can be done entirely online. 

Here’s everything you need to know, and the exact steps to make one.

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What happens to everything you own if you pass away without a will?

It is not something most of us want to sit with. But if you never get round to writing a will, the decision is made for you. A law called the Intestate Succession Act steps in and splits your estate according to a fixed formula, no matter what you might have wanted.

The good news is the rules are not complicated, and once you understand them you can decide whether you are happy to leave things as they are or take a bit of control. Here is how it all works.

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Most of us buy life insurance for the people we’d leave behind. Then we file the policy away and never think about it again.

But have you pictured what actually happens when a claim is made? Would your family get the money quickly, or would they be stuck filling in forms and waiting on a court order while they’re grieving?

That’s what an insurance nomination sorts out. It tells your insurer exactly who should receive the proceeds, and it can be the difference between a payout in weeks and a payout in many months.

In this guide we’ll cover what a nomination is, which policies it applies to, what happens if you skip it, the two types you can make, and the new online option that’s been available since 2024. It’s one of the simpler parts of estate planning in Singapore, it’s the last step in getting your insurance in order, and it’s free.

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