“Mr. Tan was a successful businessman and held stakes in various businesses and properties. For various reasons, he used several nominees to hold his assets. He was receiving a good monthly income, in excess of RM30,000 through these nominees. It was estimated that the value of his investments amounted to RM10 million. Unfortunately, Mr. Tan died at the young age of 42 leaving behind his wife, a 17 year old son and a 15 year old daughter. Mrs. Tan soon found out that all her husband’s bank accounts were frozen and the monthly income stream from his nominees had stopped. Since Mrs. Tan is a homemaker, she does not have any idea on how to run her husband’s businesses. Due to the time taken for the estate administration process, she had to borrow from her friends and relatives to pay for her family’s monthly expenses. Because of lack of funds for the older child’s university education, she was later forced to sell her husband’s shares in the business at a steeply discounted price of RM2 million. During Mr. Tan’s lifetime, he verbally told his wife that if he were to pass on, he wanted to allocate sufficient funds to pay for both his children’s maintenance and education expenses. He also told her that he was very confident that his business partners would be honourable enough to buy over his shares at fair value upon his demise. However, no action was taken to formalise his wishes and instructions and unfortunately his partners failed to honour their word. Thus, due to lack of proper planning, Mr. Tan’s family was deprived of the monthly income stream and capital funds of RM8 million.”