If you pass on without a will, you would be known to have passed “intestate”. Thus, the Intestate Succession Act (“ISA”) would apply to you. Do note however that the ISA does not apply to Muslims.

Under the ISA, several rules have been set out with regards to how your assets are to be distributed after you’ve passed on:

1. If you die leaving a surviving spouse, no issue and no parent, your spouse shall be entitled to the whole of the estate.
2. If you die leaving a surviving spouse and issue, your spouse shall be entitled to one-half of the estate.
3. Your estate (both as to the undistributed portion and the reversionary interest) shall be distributed by equal portions per stirpes to and amongst your children and such persons as legally represent those children, in case any of those children be then dead.
—Proviso No. (1) — The persons who legally represent your children are their descendants and not their next‑of‑kin. —Proviso No. (2) — Descendants of the intestate to the remotest degree stand in the place of their parent or other ancestor, and take according to their stocks the share which he or she would have taken.
4. If you die leaving a surviving spouse and no issue but a parent or parents, your spouse shall be entitled to one-half of the estate and your parent or parents to the other half of the estate.
5. If you have no descendants, your parent or parents shall take the estate, in equal portions if there be 2 parents, subject to the rights of your surviving spouse (if any) as provided in rule 4.
6. If you have no surviving spouse, descendants or parents, your brothers and sisters shall share the estate in equal portions. If any of your brothers and sisters are deceased, their children shall take the share which your deceased brother or sister would have taken.
7. If you have no surviving spouse, descendants, parents, brothers and sisters or children of such brothers and sisters but grandparents, your grandparents shall take the whole of the estate in equal portions.
8. If you have no surviving spouse, descendants, parents, brothers and sisters or their children or grandparents but uncles and aunts, your uncles and aunts shall take the whole of the estate in equal portions.
9. In default of distribution under rules 1 to 8, the Government shall be entitled to the whole of the estate.

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