No more inheritance: Hong Kong's top court lays down law for four children
Assets will go to charity as couple's will states descendants are well provided for
All the assets of a late Hong Kong-born Singaporean and his wife will go to charity when she dies as the wealthy couple had decided their children had received enough from them, the top court ruled yesterday.
Four of the five children failed in their final effort to own shares in the family's shipping business, as the Court of Final Appeal found Tan Kiam Toen stated very clearly in his 2008 will "his intention was that the children should not take any portion of his assets passing under the will".
The four - Tan Cheng Gay, Tan Yok Koon, Tan Choo Pin and Tan Chin Hoon - had claimed their father had intended to give them his shares as a gift to the family.
But the five appeal judges found the father had not accomplished this arrangement before he died and so the shares should be dealt with under the will.
According to the joint will Tan and his wife, Ng Giok Oh, drew up in February 2008, "all our children and descendants have received adequate and appropriate care during our lifetime".
"We hope that they can be self-reliant, and do good for society and mankind. As such, we do not intend to give any portion of our residuary estate to them."
Ng's stance was the same as her spouse's, while eldest daughter Tan Choo Suan did not contest the will, the court had heard.
According to the judgment, the father was born in Hong Kong in 1919 and founded Afro-Asia Shipping in Singapore in 1961. He also owned a commercial building in Robinson Road, Singapore.
The couple told their three sons and two daughters about the will, but the sons tried to persuade their father to gift the shares to the family. He died in November 2008 before the arrangement was made.
