From 4 May 2020, the Singapore Academy of Law (“SAL”) will manage the Wills Registry, which is presently under the purview of the Public Trustee’s Office (PTO). The transfer of the registry to SAL is in line with its role as provider of legal information and services, making it more convenient for the legal industry and the public.

Charges for services currently offered by the Registry will remain the same. Members of the public who at present have wills information in the Registry need not take any action in relation to this change.

However, to facilitate the transfer, the Wills Registry will stop accepting the depositing of wills information between 22 April 2020 and 3 May 2020. Members of the public who wish to conduct a wills search during this period can do so through the search form from PTO’s website and submitting it through MinLaw’s online enquiry form, available at https://eservices.mlaw.gov.sg/enquiry/.

SAL will continue to maintain the confidentiality of the information within the Registry, and uphold the existing policy of releasing information only to the testator, the lawyers acting for the testator or the estate of the deceased testator, or the next-of-kin or beneficiary of the deceased testator, when an application to search for wills information is made.

Upon the transfer, SAL will initially offer the same services as those presently offered by PTO. However, plans are afoot to provide more comprehensive wills and will-related services to members of the public in future.

“The management of the Wills Registry is in line with SAL’s other statutory functions as a trusted custodian of confidential information and documents,” said Ms Serene Wee, Chief Executive of SAL. “Over time, we hope to add on other related functions to the Wills Registry, including a future repository for copies of wills”.

Those who wish to deposit or update their wills information from 4 May 2020 can do so by visiting https://wills.sal.sg.

For more information, the public can contact:

• SAL at 6332 4388 or email [email protected]
• Ministry of Law at 1800-2255-646529 or online through https://eservices.mlaw.gov.sg/enquiry/