AYQ v AYR

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Woo Bih Li J
• Judgment Date: 13 April 2012
• Neutral Citation: [2012] SGHC 80
• Citation: [2012] SGHC 80
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Published date: 09 April 2013
• Docket Number: Divorce Suit No. 5149 of 2007/B
• Plaintiff Counsel: Bernice Loo and Magdalene Sim (Allen & Gledhill LLP)
• Defendant Counsel: the defendant in person.
• Subject Matter: Family law
• Hearing Date: 13 January 2012,09 January 2012,06 March 2012,12 October 2011,17 August 2011

Woo Bih Li J:

Parties were before me to determine certain issues ancillary to their divorce. The husband discharged his lawyer after the second hearing and represented himself thereafter.

The defendant (“the husband”) is an eye-surgeon with Australian citizenship; the plaintiff (“the wife”) is an aesthetics doctor with Singapore citizenship. They are now both in private practice with their own clinics. Their marriage began on 17 May 1986 and lasted for 23 years. They have a 19 year old daughter reading for an undergraduate degree in England, and a 15 year old son studying at an international school in Singapore.

I will now summarise the orders I made on 6 March 2012.

I ordered parties to be granted joint custody over the children and granted the wife sole care and control with reasonable access to the husband. The terms of access were to be worked out by the parties.

As regards the division of matrimonial assets, I granted the wife: 20% of $1,323,655.19 being the parties’ combined matrimonial assets (excluding sale proceeds of the matrimonial home and of a property in Australia (“the Australia house”); 39% of $886,887 being the net sale proceeds of the matrimonial home; and 5% of $533,122.52 being the husband’s share of the sale proceeds of the Australia house. The husband would be entitled to the balance. Any sum to be paid by the husband to the wife arising from the division of matrimonial assets may be set-off against his share of the sale proceeds of the matrimonial home.

(a)I ordered the husband to pay the wife $1 per month from 1 January 2010 for her own maintenance. I also ordered the husband to pay 60% of the children’s maintenance. I determined the children’s expenses (excluding school fees) in Singapore to be $2,000 per month and the husband was to pay the wife 60% thereof amounting to $1,200 per month from 1 January 2010. The wife was to reimburse the husband for 40% of the school fees from 1 January 2009. She was also to reimburse the husband 40% of overseas accommodation and living expenses of the daughter. He was to provide reasonable documentary evidence of the school fees, accommodation and living expenses to the wife. Any sum to be paid by the wife for reimbursement may be set-off against her share of the sale proceeds of the matrimonial home.

Each party was to bear his or her own costs of these ancillary proceedings.

The wife has filed an appeal against my decision on the division of matrimonial assets and on maintenance for herself and for the children. I set out my reasons below.

The children

The children presently live with the wife – the daughter when she is in Singapore. To their credit, the parties appear to have worked out a mutually satisfactory arrangement that allows the children to spend enough time with their father. It was in this context that the husband agreed to give the wife sole care and control of the children with reasonable access for himself.

Matrimonial property

I will deal first with the division of matrimonial assets (not arising from the sale of real property) and, secondly, the division of the sale proceeds from the matrimonial home. Thirdly, I will discuss the division of the sale proceeds from a house in Australia. The goal was to achieve a just and equitable result, taking into account the factors listed in s 122 of the Women’s Charter (Cap 353, 2009 Rev Ed).

Matrimonial assets (not arising from the sale of real property)

The parties were able to agree on $875,897.19¹ worth of matrimonial assets, held by either the husband or the wife, by the third hearing on 9 January 2012. This sum excluded a refund of $178,577.79 to the wife’s Central Provident Fund (“CPF”) account from the sale proceeds of the matrimonial home which would be taken into account when such sale proceeds are dealt with.²

The parties were not able to agree on five items of matrimonial assets. The first was the valuation of Clinic C, one of the husband’s clinics.³ The husband had hired a professional accountant to value his shares in Clinic C. The accountant’s report was dated 27 April 2011 and valued Clinic C at $197,758 as at 4 November 2007 and $443,281 as at 12 May 2009. The former valuation was based on Clinic C’s management accounts for the year ending 30 June 2008. The husband was initially happy to rely on this report in his affidavit filed on 12 May 2011. At the second hearing on 12 October 2011, I was informed by lawyers for the husband and wife that they had agreed to use 7 November 2007 (being the date the wife left the matrimonial home) as the date to value the matrimonial assets. This meant that the parties were adopting the figure of $197,758 for the value of Clinic C since that value was as at 4 November 2007, which was close enough to 7 November 2007.

However at the fifth hearing of 6 March 2012, the husband told me that the true valuation of Clinic C as at 4 November 2007 was $3,693 instead. He explained the difference of more than $190,000 on the basis that Clinic C had taken out a loan to buy medical equipment soon after 4 November 2007. His business at Clinic C had also been very good from after November 2007 onwards. So the accounts as of 30 June 2008, which had been used to prepare the valuation, gave an inflated impression of the actual value of Clinic C as at 4 November 2007. To support his position, the husband tried to adduce a fresh accountant’s report prepared by the same accountant as before. He said that the accountant had explained to him that it was standard accounting practice to use the management accounts for the year ending 30 June 2008 to determine the value of Clinic C as at 4 November 2007, but he disagreed that this was the correct approach. Hence the fresh report which was allegedly based on the accounts as at 4 November 2007. Counsel for the wife, Ms Loo, objected on the basis that the court should not look behind the earlier accountant’s report.

I denied the husband leave to admit the fresh report. As already noted, the first valuation had been done by the husband’s own accountant. The husband had been happy at the start to rely on it. So had his former lawyer acting on his instructions. The husband said that the figure of $197,758 was an alternative to the other valuation of $449,781 as at 12 May 2009. He said he did not know that the court might adopt the figure of $197,758. I was of the view that this was not a valid reason. That figure was mentioned as an alternative for the court’s possible adoption. Accordingly I based the value of Clinic C on the accountant’s report of 27 April 2011, this value being $197,758.

The second item of disputed matrimonial assets related to the valuation of Clinic S, which was another of the husband’s clinics.⁴ The wife said its value was $307,797.70, while the husband’s valuation of it was $214,199. At the hearing on 9 January 2012, Ms Loo and the husband eventually agreed to the sum of $250,000.

I should mention that although the wife has a clinic owned through a company, Clinic L, this clinic started after 7 November 2007 which was the cut-off date which both counsel had agreed upon to value the matrimonial assets, before the husband decided to represent himself. Hence the wife’s clinic was not taken into account as part of the matrimonial assets.

The third and fourth items in dispute were respectively, the value of the husband’s company [H]⁵, and $39,337.47 held in Clinic C’s account with OCBC bank.⁶ According to the wife, the quantum of the third item was the relatively small sum of $2,866.80. During the hearing on 9 January 2012, Ms Loo agreed to drop the claim to it.

In relation to the sum held in Clinic C’s bank account, the wife’s initial stand was that this sum had not been taken into account by the accountant in his 27 April 2011 valuation. However Ms Loo eventually accepted that the court should not look behind the accountant’s valuation and confirmed on 6 March 2012 that the wife would also not be pursuing her claim in relation to Clinic C’s bank account.

The fifth item of dispute was the wife’s credit card liabilities for October and November 2007, totalling $9,155.36.⁷ Ms Loo informed me on 9 January 2012 that these expenses had been incurred because the wife was moving out of the matrimonial home. However when I looked at the respective credit card statements, it was plain that the sum of $9,155.36 included expenses for things as varied as groceries, eating at restaurants, internet “friendfinder”, hairdressing, clothing, and charitable donations. Neither was it immediately apparent which items of expenditure related directly to the cost of moving out. I thus decided that it was not appropriate to take into account these liabilities in determining the matrimonial assets.

Hence the total amount of matrimonial assets was $1,323,655.19. Of this sum, $1,186,532.08 (89.6%) was held by the husband, and $137,123.11 (10.4%) by the wife. I attach Annex A which contains details of the matrimonial assets (excluding proceeds from the sale of real property).

The wife asked to keep her share of the matrimonial assets, and 30% of what the husband held. According to her, she had made significant indirect financial contributions and non-financial contributions to the family throughout the marriage. For example, she had financially supported the family in Australia while the husband had been on a specialist medical training course from 1990 – 1995, during which period their daughter had been born. She had also done most of the housework by herself. According to the wife she was also the primary caregiver of the two children. She stopped working full-time after the birth of her daughter in 1992 in order to better take care of the family. She was in charge of the day-to-day care of the children, eg, supervising their homework, taking them to school and for medical appointments. She spent most of her free time with the children. She...