When relatives couldn't inherit $4m in their joint bank accounts with family patriarch

They do not automatically inherit all the funds when a joint account owner dies

- Tan Ooi Boon Invest Editor

When it comes to joint bank accounts, you should not assume that you will inherit all the money there when the other joint owners die, especially when they had made other plans in their wills.

This was what happened to a woman and her eldest daughter who could not stake claims over $4 million that was kept in joint accounts with the family's patriarch, because his will stated that the money would be shared among all his four children.

The patriarch had added the names of his wife and the daughter as joint account owners after he was diagnosed with cancer.

He then made some changes to his will regarding his house but did not alter the clause that stated that his other assets, which included his savings, would be shared equally among the daughter and three other children.

As the man was so meticulous that he would even ensure that he stated the name of the bank branches correctly, Singapore's highest court found that he had not intended to give his money to his joint account holders and that he had added their names for administrative purposes.

Since he did not change the beneficiaries in his will when he rewrote a part of it soon after the banking transactions, the Court of Appeal ruled that each of his four children would share the bank savings equally - $1 million each.

In resolving this dispute, the court also took the opportunity to correct a long-held misconception that joint account owners had automatic "right of survivorship" to inherit money in such accounts when the other joint owners died.

Many people make this assumption because bank documents for such accounts often refer to the surviving account owners as the "beneficial owners".

But the court clarified that the survivorship clause in bank documents was merely a contractual arrangement between the bank and the joint account holders on how to deal with the money in the joint account.