WILLS & CUSTODY
Custody Administrator / Receptionist
Wills & Custody | Precepts Legacy Pte. Ltd.
Employing Entity
Precepts Legacy Pte. Ltd.
Department
Wills & Custody, with front desk responsibility
Location
Central (Tanjong Pagar) — on-site
Employment Type
12-month contract. Conversion to permanent employment is possible from the 6-month review. 5-day work week.
How to Apply
Send your CV to hr@preceptsgroup.com with the subject line “Application: Custody Administrator / Receptionist”.
We review applications as they arrive and will be in touch if your experience fits what we are looking for.
PreceptsGroup is an equal opportunity employer. We select on merit, skills and experience.
The Role
This is an additional role in an established team. You will work alongside our current reception and custody staff, sharing the workload across both functions rather than taking either one over. The role is offered on a 12-month contract, and conversion to permanent employment can take effect from the six-month review rather than waiting for the term to run out.
The larger half is custody administration. We hold original Wills and related documents in safe custody for our clients, sometimes for decades. You will support the administration behind that — intake, indexing, storage, retrieval, release, and keeping the register that records where every document is.
The other half is our front desk, shared on a rostered basis with colleagues. You are among the first people our clients meet. Some are here to sign a Will, some to attend an appointment about a parent who has just died, and many are elderly and unfamiliar with the building. How they are received sets the tone for everything that follows.
Both halves ask for the same thing: care with people, and precision with paper. A custody record that is wrong is not an administrative error — it is a family unable to find the Will they were relying on.
Key Responsibilities
Custody Administration
- Receive original Wills and related documents into safe custody, checking each against the accompanying instructions before acceptance.
- Issue deposit acknowledgements to clients, and maintain a record of what was issued and when.
- Index, label and file custody documents to the firm’s storage standards, so that any document can be located without a search.
- Maintain the custody register accurately — what we hold, for whom, and where — and support periodic reconciliation against the physical holdings.
- Process retrievals and releases in line with the firm’s authorisation procedures, including release to executors and next-of-kin on death.
- Handle client and executor enquiries about documents held in custody, and escalate anything requiring legal or trustee judgement.
- Support periodic custody audits and stock-takes, and investigate and report any discrepancy immediately.
- Track and process custody renewals, fee notices and client contact-detail updates, so that we can still reach a client years after the document was deposited.
- Maintain custody correspondence, filing and audit trail to the standards expected of a licensed trust company.
Front Desk & Client Reception
- Greet and assist visitors courteously and professionally, and settle them while they wait.
- Manage incoming calls and direct them to the right person, taking accurate messages where they cannot be answered.
- Handle general enquiries by phone, email and in person, and escalate anything you cannot answer rather than guessing.
- Receive clients attending Will signings, attestation appointments and estate matters, and notify the relevant team promptly.
- Assist elderly, unwell or bereaved visitors with patience and discretion.
- Keep the reception area clean, presentable and welcoming.
- Share front desk coverage with colleagues on a rostered basis, including cover during lunch breaks, leave and peak periods.
Appointments & Meeting Rooms
- Schedule and confirm client appointments, and manage the office calendar.
- Maintain meeting room bookings and prepare rooms ahead of client appointments.
- Coordinate internal and external communications relating to appointments and visits.
- Flag scheduling clashes early, particularly where an appointment requires a witness or a specific team member to be present.
Documents & Records
- Receive, sort and distribute incoming mail, couriers and deliveries, routing any original documents straight into the custody intake process.
- Handle confidential client documents with discretion at every stage.
- Prepare, organise and maintain files and records, both physical and digital.
- Perform data entry accurately, and check your own work before it is filed.
- Maintain visitor logs and records in line with PDPA requirements.
Office Operations
- Monitor office supplies, order replenishments, and let the relevant staff know when stock is low.
- Liaise with vendors, service providers and building management as required.
- Provide general administrative support to management and the wider team.
- Support office events, staff sessions and client seminars held on the premises.
What You Will Need
Essential
- Minimum secondary education, or a diploma in any discipline.
- Demonstrable accuracy with records — registers, logs, inventories or filing systems you were responsible for keeping correct.
- The discipline to follow a documented procedure every time, including when you are busy and nobody is checking.
- Strong organisational skills, and the ability to hold several tasks at once without dropping any of them.
- Good written and verbal communication, and a warm, professional manner with people you have not met before.
- Discretion. You will see client names, family circumstances and confidential documents daily.
- Working knowledge of Microsoft Office, particularly Outlook, Word and Excel.
- Presentable, punctual and dependable.
Advantageous
- Experience in document custody, records management, safe deposit, archiving or a registry function.
- Prior experience in reception or administration in a legal, medical, financial or other professional services setting.
- Ability to converse in Mandarin, Malay, Tamil or a Chinese dialect, in order to assist clients who are not fluent in English.
- Familiarity with PDPA as it applies to client and visitor records.
How You Work
- Calm and considerate. Some visitors arrive on the worst week of their lives, and it will not always be obvious which ones.
- Systematic about small things: registers reconciled, logs kept, messages passed on, documents where they should be.
- Comfortable saying no. Releasing a document to the wrong person cannot be undone, and following the authorisation procedure matters more than being accommodating.
- Reliable — reception is the one desk that cannot be left uncovered.
- Willing to take on whatever the office needs on a given day.
What We Offer
- Conversion to permanent employment from the 6-month review, assessed against agreed competency checkpoints. You do not have to serve out the full 12 months to be made permanent.
- A central role with visibility across the whole firm, in a function the business genuinely depends on.
- Full training on custody procedures, our systems, and client-facing standards, from colleagues already doing the work.
- An established team to learn from, rather than a function to invent from scratch.
- Medical and dental benefits upon confirmation.
- 13th month AWS, annual salary review and performance-based bonus.
- Ongoing training and development opportunities.
- Annual leave that increases with length of service.
Work Arrangements
- On-site. This role requires physical presence at the reception desk and access to custody storage.
- 5-day work week, Monday to Friday.
- Front desk coverage is rostered across the team.
