Inheritance

Q: Zaid passed away on 15 October 2014. He used to pay his staff's monthly salaries to the value of 100k on the 30th of every month. Will a liability
for half a months salary ie 50k be deducted from his net assets when calculating his estate?

Q: My father passed away last year and left a verbal will of how his estate shall be distributed amongst his children. The family are all aware of this as it was said to all of them. We are now in an unislamic court over the matter since one of them is just being plain greedy. Please advise.

Q: Does a lump sum of a pension payable to the children of a deceased form part of the estate? I have tried finding answers and keep getting conflicting answers. The reasoning for not forming part of estate is that it is not owned by the deceased as it is given to the beneficiaries upon the death of deceased. While the deceased lives he/she receives the pension on a monthly basis. The deceased himself cannot collect the lump sum as it is only payable to the beneficiaries. When looking on the web for answers most Islamic scholars state it as not being part of estate. Even in South African law Section 37c of pension fund states it as not being part of estate. I am confused and need guidance.

Q: My father recently passed away (may Allah Ta'ala be pleased with him and grant him janah, insha Allah) and I have been appointed as the executor of his estate. He is to recieve a lump sum payment from pension fund for 2 years pension which is payable to me and my twin sister. We are adopted so he has made wasiyah for 1/3 for the two of us of his estate. There is funds still to come from investments. He was very sick so he gifted his household goods to us before he died. As far as his pension goes it is a small amount, does it form part of estate to be divided. He has 5 brothers and 3 sisters which I have to divide the remainding 2/3 of estate. Shukraan.

Q: What should I do with inherited insurance money? My brother in-law has a big debt. Can I give it to him if I have to give it away?

Q: My two brothers are A and B.  A had property that was given to him by my father and he gave away to B. Verbally and all the family knew it.  B never changed the papers on his name. But  benefited from that property. B passed away leaving a widow 2 sons 3 daughters. The property is still in A s name on paper. There is no will of B.  How should this be divided. A has 3 sons and a daughter and wife. They all want this property. And we both sisters of A and B are also surviving.  So please advise.

Q: At the time of the distribution (2004) of the assets of the deceased, the wife of the deceased wished to "take" a diamond belonging to the deceased by offering to pay the other heirs the market value of the diamond. The other heirs agreed, however the value was not known to the heirs. A few years later (2014) the widow wishes to pay the the heirs for that diamond.

a) Was the "taking" of the diamond by the widow at the date of distribution (2004) considered a valid sale to the heirs, considering the value was not known to the widow or the rest of the heirs at that stage ?

b)Which market value should she now pay the heirs on i.e. 2004 or 2014 if applicable?

Q: My father had taken a house on rent in 1970. In 1978, my father entered into agreement with the builder for flat to be allocated to him. He also agreed to buy 100 sq feet more by paying Rs. 10000/-. During this time someone had suggested him to avoid some legal issue he transferred his right to my uncle just for the sake of law. Till now we were staying as joint family. In 2011 my uncle was diagnosed with cancer, so we verbally made his will stating that the house will be divided in 2 shares 50% to his wife and other 50% to me, that time my father didn’t objected to his decision as my uncle was suffering from cancer. My uncle died in 2012 September, and now his wife want to sell the property and take her 50% share for which my father is objecting. I want to know in the light of Sharia rules. 1. Can my uncle make verbally will for the property which was actually of my father but due to some legal issue the property was registered in my uncle name. 2. Who is the rightful owner of the property?

Q:

1. A person wants to draw up a sharia will. He has a wife, 2 sons and a living mother. I have not mentioned his siblings as I understand that they do not inherit while he has a mother, wife and children. What is the islamic split in this scenario?

2. He wants to give one vehicle to the one son. The second son is owing him alot of money. He wants to write-off that debt. He wants to give some shares which he has with a muslim run property scheme to his wife. The scheme pays dividends quarterly.

3. Initially, he wanted to stipulate in his will his intentions for giving over these assets to his heirs as noted above. I pointed out that I doubt that you can make such stipulations as the distribution on death should be as per Islamic splits and if he wishes to give anything, he needs to do it while he is living (i.e. handing over ownership).

4. If he hands over ownership while living, he would like to use the car till his passing and if his son passes away first, he understands that he needs to then hand the car over to the sons estate. Similarly, if he hands ownership of the shares to his wife, he would like to ask his wife to allow him to benefit from the dividends while he is living.

5. For the writing-off debt for the other son, from a fatherly concern point of view, he was wondering if a) He needs to tell the concerned son (son a) that he is writing it off or if it will suffice to tell the son who is not owing him the money (son b) that it was given over to son a. The reason is he is concerned that if son a knows that the debt is not repayable, he may carelessly incur more debt. Also, he would like to not tell his wife about the debt incurred by son a as it may affect her health.

Mufti Saheb, please can you advise on the sharia rulings for the above and your advice and suggestions for the above scenarios.