Before passing away in Jan 2022, Toh Kim Hiang tried to nominate his daughter as his Central Provident Fund (CPF) beneficiary, which was then still his estranged ex-wife.
However, he failed to do so twice and died not long after his second unsuccessful nomination attempt.
His daughter, Adeline Toh Tun Li, later went to court seeking a declaration that the second nomination was valid.
On Wednesday (8 Mar), the judge ruled in Ms Toh’s favour, ordering the funds to be released to her.
According to Channel NewsAsia, the late Mr Toh assumed that his CPF savings would be inherited by his daughter instead of his ex-wife, Yee Swee Yong.
This is because he thought his CPF nomination in favour of Ms Yee would have been voided after they divorced in February 1985.
During his 80th birthday celebration in Nov 2021, Ms Toh’s husband, Ng Chye Aik, told him that he would in fact need to make a new CPF nomination.
About two weeks later, Mr Toh submitted an online application naming Ms Toh as his CPF nominee.
Mr Ng managed to complete his online attestation as the first witness. However, the second witness, his sister Ng Bee Kien, did not.
As a result, the first submission expired on 29 Nov 2021, and the nomination was unsuccessful, The Straits Times (ST) reported.
The next day, Mr Toh submitted a second application. However, it too was unsuccessful as Ms Ng had once again failed to complete her attestation.
Not long after that, Mr Toh got sick and passed away on 4 Jan 2022.
When Ms Toh made requests to have her father’s savings released to her instead of her mother, CPF reportedly told her that Mr Toh did not submit any new nominations before his death.
Ms Ng later claimed that she had received text messages from the CPF Board informing her to complete her attestation as Mr Toh’s second witness.
But when she visited the online portal, she claimed she could not find any notifications asking for further action.
Thus, she assumed that simply logging in was sufficient and did not do anything else.
Source: Mimi Thian on Unsplash, for illustration purposes only
It eventually came to light that Mr Toh had entered the wrong NRIC number under Ms Ng’s details. This was likely the reason why she was unable to complete the attestation.
Following her father’s death, Ms Toh turned to the High Court to have her father’s second CPF nomination declared valid.
She also managed to stop CPF from distributing her father’s savings to her estranged mother until the case had come to a close.
On Wednesday (8 Mar), Justice Lee Seiu Kin published his grounds of decision ruling in Ms Toh’s favour.
He noted that it was “clear” Mr Toh was not intending to leave his CPF savings to his ex-wife as they essentially lived as “strangers” after they split.
There was also strong evidence that Mr Toh wanted Ms Toh to inherit the funds instead. This is based on his two attempts to nominate his daughter.
In addition, Mr Toh’s will corroborates his intent as he bequeathed his property absolutely to her.
As such, Justice Lee ordered CPF to release Mr Toh’s savings to Ms Toh.
He added that he found it “puzzling” that a pre-existing CPF nomination would not be automatically revoked by divorce.
Still, the judge ordered no costs against the Board since “formalities were not complied with”.
Because of this, “the CPF Board was entitled to refuse to recognise the nomination until the court orders otherwise”.
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Featured image by MS News.
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