News

Govt Agency Has Over $200M Unclaimed Money, Mostly CPF Monies Left By People Without Nominations

2019-10-22 , 6:00 am

I was eighteen when my aunt hustled me into a CPF service branch.

I thought she was going to direct the officers to wire all my money into her CPF. Thankfully, she didn’t.

Instead, she nominated me and told me that if she died, I’ll get her CPF money instead of letting the government makan it all away.

~~That was when I started wishing for her death~~ Wait, the government won’t take your money lah. They too rich.

Then this happens:

The gahmen will really take your money?!

If you’ve thought this, it’s because you didn’t click in to read the full article (and just shared with the headline) or you can’t afford to pay the Straits Times membership.

Don’t worry because Goody Feed is here for you.

So What’s The $200M++ All About?

On 21 Oct 2019, Straits Times ran an article, indicating that there is over $200 million left unclaimed with the Insolvency and Public Trustee’s Office.

The money consists of:

Tax refunds
Levy bonds
Immigration deposits
Unclaimed CPF monies

It was revealed that a huge bulk of the unclaimed money is CPF monies belonging to people who died without nominating anybody for their CPF.

By now, you’re probably panicking, so if my mom didn’t nominate anyone, the money will go to the government?

Nope.

CPF Nomination is Key But They’ll Still Try To Give The Money Out

Here’s the default mode:

Person A nominates Person B. Person A dies. The money in Person A’s CPF account is given to person B in cold hard cash.

Now, what if Person A didn’t nominate anybody?

The CPF monies will be passed along to the Public Trustee Office (PTO), which will be in charge of distributing the money to the remaining family members under the Interstate Succession Act or the Inheritance Certificate (for our Muslim friends).

So if there’s anyone you don’t like in your family who’s likely to receive your hard-earned money, do the nomination today.

If not, it’ll go to that nephew whom you’ve secretly hated.

So now, we come to the important question:

Why Are There Still Unclaimed CPF Monies?

They gave a couple of reasons for this:

Owners of the money were uncontactable even after multiple attempts by the various agencies.

Families could be affected by successive deaths; Brother dies, sister was supposed to get the money but she passed away as well.

More and more people choose to remain unmarried and they passed away without any benefactors.

More elderly folks are living alone and their other family members could not be contacted.

The money will not be given to people who are deemed mentally unsound. Should they want to get the money, they must have a representative who was appointed by the court or the person giving away the money under a Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA).

In other words, a lot of hoops that people don’t even know exist.

Plus, There’s A Fee

PTO charges a fee when giving out unnominated CPF monies: 2.4 per cent for the first $1,000, 1.5 per cent for the next $9,000 and 0.75 per cent for the next $240,000.

Let’s do the math for you: Supposing you have $250k to get, instead of the full amount, you’ll get:

(1,000*97.6%) + (9,000*98.5%) + (240,000*99.25%) = $248,041‬

In short, you’ll lose $1,959 in service fees.

So no matter whether:-

You have a favourite nephew to pamper
There’s someone you don’t want touching your money
Or you want your family to mourn your passing in peace instead of waging a war against the law
You don’t want your hard-earned money to go to someone because they happen to be holding on to it,

Just nominate someone.

You can do your nomination via mail or at CPF’s various service centres.

The Good News

There’s always a positive note in every situation.

Even this one.

The good news is, the PTO is as eager to get the unclaimed monies to their rightful owners as the people wanting to receive it.

And there’s even a website for you to check if you have a windfall waiting for you. You can check it here.

A spokesperson for the PTO said that no matter how long the money has been held, they’ll still return the money as long as it’s valid.

Should you discover the windfall, you can approach the respective agencies with documents proving your right to get the money.

At the time of writing, my auntie is still alive and I’m still writing at Goody Feed.