The Central Provident Fund (Amendment) Act 2006 and Intestate Succession in Singapore

Barry C. Crown  (Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore) has recently posted on SSRN an article entitled Death and the Central Provident Fund: Legislative Intervention. 

Here is an abstract of this article:

The Central Provident Fund (Amendment) Act 2006 is essentially a technical piece of legislation, fine-tuning various aspects of the operation of the Central Provident Fund (‘CPF’) scheme. Needless to say, legislation of this nature rarely calls for comment in an academic law review. However, section 12 of the Central Provident Fund (Amendment) Act 2006 is of importance in the Singapore law of succession. It amends section 25 of the principal Act, the Central Provident Fund Act, which provides for the disposition of CPF moneys on the death of a member who has not made a nomination under the CPF scheme. The new section 25 resolves a longstanding problem in the law of succession, but unfortunately it does so in a way which is likely to give rise to difficulties for CPF members in the future. To appreciate fully the change that has taken place, it is necessary to devote a few words to the state of the law as it stood prior to the recent amendment