Non-legally Trained Persons Providing Advice for Drafting of Wills

25 Miss Cheryl Chan Wei Ling asked the Minister for Law (a) whether the Ministry has statistics regarding organisations or non-legally trained individuals who are advising clients on the drafting of wills; and (b) whether the Ministry intends to restrict, supervise or regulate non-lawyers and organisations that are not legally trained from dealing with the business of will drafting.

Mr K Shanmugam: Will-writing services are not restricted solely to lawyers and are not a regulated activity under the Legal Profession Act¹. This accords with the approach in other jurisdictions such as Britain.

People who wish to make a will have a range of choices. They may write the will themselves, or seek the help of a will-writing service provider. Those who envisage their assets being distributed or managed in a complex manner can engage a lawyer to assist with drafting the will. The Legal Aid Bureau also offers legal assistance in the drafting of wills to Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents of limited means. We do not maintain statistics on the provision of will-writing services.

We encourage the public to deposit information on their wills with the Wills Registry, which is a confidential registry maintained by the Public Trustee. Doing so will make it easier to locate the will in future.