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People who are successful in life often fail to spend sufficient time on planning and structuring their estate, thus leaving behind a potential headache for their dependents. This often leads to conflicts amongst siblings and leaves a bitter taste in the mouth concerning their parents’ lack of foresight.

Legacy planning and protecting your family's wealth and finances should be the first thing an expat does according to finacial expert Freddy Meindertsma, read on to see his advice for securing your family's financial security.

The importance of writing a will

The ‘will’ is a legally enforceable declaration of how a person wishes his property and assets to be distributed after death. By writing one, a guardian for the children can be appointed, as well as an executor of the estate responsible for handling matters usually supervised by the probate court.

Without a will an estate passes ‘probate’ according to Succession Law, where the legal court will take it into their hands to conclude all your legal and financial matters after your death—with further complications if there are assets in several countries. The problem for many expats is they find this out too late.

Probate, by definition, refers to the general administering of a deceased person's will, or the estate of a deceased person without a will. The court appoints either an ‘executor’ named in the will or an ‘administrator’ if there is no will.

Singapore has always been one of the more popular countries among expats, but did you know that the island city-state boasts the highest paid expats in the world? According to a recent article by HSBC, relocating to Singapore pays off lucratively for expats in terms of disposable income and savings. But that is only a few of the many reasons why expats who move to Singapore are the highest paid in the world—and Team Expat has collated and broke down the facts for you below:

Fact #1: Low cost of living and working in Singapore

Contrary to popular belief, the cost of living and working in Singapore can be kept to a minimum, if one knows how. For example, instead of owning a car, why not use public transport? Not only is the country’s public transportation network extremely accessible—you can go almost anywhere by bus or MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) alone—it’s also really cheap. If you need to go somewhere that’s not accessible by bus or train, the option for cabs is open to you, and they are still more affordable than the cost of maintaining a car.

The Strait Times reported that living and working costs in cities with more space has decreased, and Singapore recorded the biggest decline at 16.6 per cent. Although this can be seen as a decline in local economic conditions or demand for property, cheaper rents could also prove to be a global competitive advantage—low rents coupled with high quality of living could entice expats to move to the country. Ultimately, the low cost of living and working in Singapore makes it easier for expats to save more of their income, making them the highest paid in the world, based on the amount of disposable income leftover after taxes, household and necessary expenditures.

Fact #2: Singapore’s financial markets are flourishing

According to The Strait Times, more and more millionaires are choosing to relocate to Singapore over Hong Kong due to the Umbrella Movement—a pro-democracy demonstration that began on 28 September 2014 as a form of grass-roots objection to the decision of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPCSC) of 31 August 2014. Although it seems that activists have abandoned their fight, leaders of the pro-democracy movement explained that the struggle is not over, and that they are merely laying low until further developments in Beijing. As a result, wealthy expats from Hong Kong prefer to relocate to Singapore, which raises the average of 1 in 35 Singaporeans by 17 per cent, according to WealthInsight.

Additionally, Singapore is known for its superior quality of life and flourishing financial markets, which factors into migratory expats’ decision-making. An increase in the number of wealthy expats in the country leads to higher amounts of spending, which in turn helps to stimulate the economy more, if Keynesian economics are to be believed. Further reports from WealthInsight also show that the country’s wealthiest have the lowest average wealth in Asia (USD 5.2 million per individual)—a lower average means that the wealth is distributed evenly among the country’s population.