Any will in Singapore is only valid and recognized by the Court if it complies with the requirement of the Wills Act Cap 352 Should it fail to comply it is not valid. The risk of having someone not qualified to do it for you, would be by the time you discover that the will does not comply with Wills Act it is too late to rectify by yourself.
Recently a will which I have prepared for client came up for probate application after death of the client. The outstanding medical bills was disputed by some of the beneficiaries. There was a deadlock between the hospital and the beneficiary. However as long as there is outstanding payment the estate could not be distributed. Fortunately, as I was involved in the preparation of the will and as she was aware of the deceased’s financial status. I was able to clarify the situation and the beneficiaries got their bequests.
Sometimes there are challenges made against the will by next of kin. E.g. that the testator lacks testamentary capacity i.e. he was not of sound mind when the will was executed. This happens often when some next of kins is left out of the will altogether. The next of kin left out would allege that when the deceased executed the will he has not of unsound mind. If it is a lawyer who assists in the preparation of the will he would have taken the extra step to obtained evidence that the testator was not of unsound mind and that instead he had deliberately left out that next of kin.
Legal practitioners especially seasoned ones would have taken all these steps to ensure that the will was executed without a hitch and the subsequent probate proceedings that will follow smoothly upon the death of the testator.
These are experience that non-lawyer or ordinary will planner would not have the technical expertise and experience to foresee and to prevent such problems.
