Farah Deba Mohamed Sofian

Leaders in Law endorses Farah Deba Mohamed Sofian as our exclusively recommended Trusts & Estates Law expert in Malaysia. If you wish to get in touch with Farah please use the contact information provided above.

FARAH DEBA MOHAMED SOFIAN has been extensively involved in estate planning and inheritance work since year 2002 and is currently a partner of Messrs Wong Lu Peen & Tunku Alina. She has advised wide range of clientele including various financial institutions (both Islamic and conventional) on corporate banking and trade facilities, property developers in respect of mixed integrated development (residential, commercial and industrial projects), foreign clients on foreign acquisition and disposal of assets, body corporates on long-term lease and land development arrangements concerning infrastructure and privatized projects locally and internationally (including  in the Middle East).
Farah also has first-hand experience in setting up an Islamic financing unit of a co-operative society including the provision of training for the staff and preparation of the standard operating procedures for the financing unit.  She is also involved in advising clients on special projects for the development & construction of transportation hub, hotels  & medical centers. Additionally, she advises clients from time to time on various ad-hoc corporate and regulatory issues including the recently introduced regulatory regimes relating to competition, data protection and privacy issues.

Special Focus

She was instrumental in establishing the Inheritance and Succession Practice Group in the Firm.  She formulated the idea of expanding the real property practice of the Firm to the provision of estate planning & business succession instruments to Muslim and non-Muslim clients.

The Firm now provides a full range of inheritance & succession advisory services with special focus in asset protection & preservation, estate & business succession planning, probate & administration affecting Muslims & non-Muslims. Her clientele include various high net worth individuals, trust companies, foundations (family holdings & charitable), professional will-writing companies & other body corporates.

Her team’s practice includes

Determining distribution computation for Muslims & non-Muslims; – determination of heirs (forced heirship rule); – attendance in Shariah courts; – Wills writing & review; – Structuring & preparing wealth and estate planning instruments including trusts & business succession instruments, preparation of buy- sell arrangements;  – Creation & formation of trust foundations (charitable or otherwise);   – probate & estate administration including assisting & facilitating legal representatives with the administration and management of the deceased’s estate, calling in of assets, attending to transmission  until distribution of assets to beneficiaries – application for letter of representation and resealing thereof including obtaining distribution order & order for sale

Qualification Graduated from International Islamic University, Malaysia; – Masters of Laws from King’s College, University of London; – Advocate & Solicitor of the High Court of Malaya since 1992; – Registered Mediator with the Bar Council Malaysian Mediation Centre ; – Full Member of Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners