THE ONLY SUMMARY YOU WILL NEED FOR THE LEE FAMILY FEUD: FOR LAZY S’POREANS ONLY

So apparently, what has been revealed is that,

1) Lee Kuan Yew’s wills were all prepared by the same lawyer, Kwa Kim Li (KKL). Only the last was prepared by a partner of Lee Hsien Yang’s wife, Lee Suet Fern (LSF).

2) LKY had initially decided that Lee Wei Ling (LWL) would receive an additional share of the estate relative to the other children (LWL, LHL, LHY 2:1:1).

3) On two occasions, Lee Hsien Yang discussed the will with Lee Kuan Yew. The content of their discussions led to Lee Kuan Yew’s decision to revert the original share from 2:1:1 to become 1:1:1 (LWL losing out in the process).

4) Lee Hsien Yang and his wife apparently tried to push through with the signing of this last will as quickly as possible. Lee Kuan Yew wanted to contacted the original lawyer (KKL), but Lee Hsien Yang removed KKL from the e-mail chain before telling Lee Kuan Yew that the lawyer (KKL) was un-contactable and was away, and that it would be best to quickly do up the last will in KKL’s absence.

5) KKL later found out about the affair the day after, and was surprised to not have been contacted.

6) Lee Hsien Yang, with his wife’s partners, got the will signed within only 15 minutes (including the time to sign in and out of LKY’s house).

7) The changes to the will was not communicated to Lee Wei Ling, nor Lee Hsien Loong.

8) Lee Wei Ling subsequently got suspicious, as she had been promised by Lee Kuan Yew that she would receive an additional share. She commented that she did not trust Lee Hsien Yang’s wife, and wondered if Lee Hsien Yang “pulled a fast one and played me out”.

9) The discussions regarding the last will apparently gave Lee Kuan Yew the impression that only the share divisions would change. The point to note here is that Lee Kuan Yew actually removed the “demolition clause” from the previous 2 wills. This clause however, was re-inserted into the last will, which took less than 15 minutes for Lee Kuan Yew to sign (raising suspicions that he had not read the will adequately).

10) Lee Hsien Yang wanted to demolish the house almost immediately, but was told by Lee Hsien Loong to hold off since LKY had just passed. LWL expressed that she wanted to continue living in the house, thus, it was decided that the government would explore the options on how the house would be handled only after LWL has ceased living in it.

11) Lee Hsien Loong transferred the house to Lee Hsien Yang under the condition that they would each donate half of its value to charity in order to not create the impression that the family is opposing any potential government acquisition for the sake of money. Lee Hsien Loong alleges that Lee Wei Ling and Lee Hsien Yang were unhappy about this decision.

12) Lee Hsien Loong was deeply suspicious of the events. This includes his suspicion that some of the lawyers who claimed to be involved in creating the will might not actually be involved, and that Lee Hsien Yang’s wife might have a conflict of interest (for bringing in her partners to handle the will). He suspects that these might be planned and played out by Lee Hsien Yang’s wife.

13) Lee Wei Ling and Lee Hsien Yang had stated that Lee Kuan Yew was not prepared to consider any options other than the demolition of the house, but this was based only on the existence of the demolition clause in the last version of the will (which had been removed from the last 2 versions).

What are of significance here is that,

1) Lee Hsien Yang got a larger share after Lee Wei Ling’s share has been reduced.

2) Lee Hsien Yang wanted to get rid of the house as quickly as possible (and possibly liquidate it), and was unhappy that he had to donate half of its value to charity.

3) From the charity matter, it seems like the siblings would get more money out of liquidating the house privately rather than having it be acquired by the government.

4) Add these to the fact that Lee Hsien Yang and Lee Wei Ling are attempting to bail out right now…the matter seems to be oddly complex.

*Updated: Lee Hsien Yang released a statement questioning Lee Hsien Loong’s convictions in LKY’s will to demolish the house.

*My personal take is that this issue is primarily about money, and that Lee Wei Ling is simply being used as a pawn. Now that suspicions have been raised and that the matter has blown up, Lee Hsien Yang is attempting to bail.