This note presents a an indirect adaptive control scheme for first-order continuous-time systems. The estimated plant model is controllable and then the adaptive scheme is free from singularities. The singularities are avoided through a modification of the estimated plant parameter vector so that its associated Sylvester matrix is guaranteed to be nonsingular. That properties is achieved by ensuring that the absolute value of its determinant does not lie below a positive threshold. A modification scheme based on the achievement of a modified diagonally dominant Sylvester matrix of the parameter estimates is also given as an alternative method. This diagonal dominance is achieved through estimates modification as a way to guarantee the controllability of the modified estimated model when a controllability measure of the ‘a priori’ estimated model fails. In both schemes, the use of a hysteresis switching function for the modification of the estimates is not required to ensure the nonsingularity of the Sylvester matrix of the estimates.