BGT v BGU

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Judith Prakash J
• Judgment Date: 27 February 2013
• Neutral Citation: [2013] SGHC 50
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: Divorce Suit No DT 5731 of 2009
• Published date: 05 March 2013
• Year: 2013
• Hearing Date: 09 April 2012,24 April 2012,03 April 2012
• Plaintiff Counsel: Kelvin Lee Ming Hui (Shankar Ow & Partners LLP)
• Defendant Counsel: Gulab Sobhraj and Michael Low (Crossbows LLP)
• Subject Matter: Family Law,Matrimonial Assets,Division,Maintenance
• Citation: [2013] SGHC 50

Judith Prakash J: Introduction

This judgment deals with claims for division of matrimonial assets and maintenance. The plaintiff-wife and the defendant-husband were married in Singapore on 22 June 1995. They subsequently had two children, a son born in September 1996, and a daughter born in December 1997. The wife filed for divorce in November 2009 and an interim judgment of divorce was granted on 23 March 2010.

When the matter first came before me, an interim order on custody, care and control and access had been made by District Judge Shobha Nair. The parties were given joint custody with care and control being awarded to the wife and detailed access arrangements being put in place for the husband. The parties indicated that they were agreeable to joint custody and the wife having care and control. The husband, however, wished to have certain modifications made in the access arrangements. After hearing the parties, I varied the access orders slightly and this is no longer a disputed issue.

The issues that I have to deal with in this judgment are with respect to the amount of maintenance that the husband should pay for the children (the wife is only claiming nominal maintenance for herself), and how the matrimonial assets should be divided between the parties.

Maintenance

When I first saw the parties last year, the wife (based on an affidavit she had filed in March 2011), claimed that the son’s expenses were $2,000 per month while the daughter’s expenses were $1,950 per month. She wanted the husband to contribute $3,000 per month to the children’s expenses. The husband was not paying the wife any maintenance for them at that time though he did bear the costs incurred when he had access to the children. During the hearing of the ancillary matters, I made an interim order that the husband should pay $600 a month as maintenance for both the children pending my final judgment. This order took effect in April 2012.

The first question that arises here is whether the expenses claimed are reasonable. The children are now aged 16 and 15 and are in secondary school. They not only have various tuition classes but also engage in extra-curricular activities. The children’s monthly expenses as claimed by the wife are as follows:

Son
(a)	Food	$600
(b)	Phone bills/Pocket money	$200
(c)	Chinese tuition	$200
(d)	Golf lessons	$150
(e)	Guitar/Piano lessons	$250
(f)	Math tuition	$280
(g)	Shoes/clothing/personal care/misc	$200
(h)	Medical/dental	$120
	Total	$2,000
Daughter
(a)	Food	$600
(b)	Phone bills/Pocket money	$200
(c)	Chinese tuition	$200
(d)	Guitar/Piano lessons	$250
(e)	Ballet	$100
(f)	Other tuition/supplementary classes	$280
(g)	Shoes/clothing/personal care/misc	$200
(h)	Medical/dental	$120
	Total	$1,950

The husband alleged that the above expenses were inflated. He thought that the amounts allocated to food and shoes/clothing and personal care were excessive. Additionally, he objected to the medical and dental expenses as not being of a recurring nature. In respect of the son, the husband submitted that the son did not pay $150 monthly for golf lessons but incurred $150 a year for golf lessons organised by his school. For both children, the husband also commented that the piano lessons were no longer being taken and that they had never taken guitar lessons.

The wife’s response was that the figures in her affidavit were reasonable but that some figures had been overtaken by events. She agreed that the children were not having guitar or piano lessons and that neither child was still enrolled for Chinese tuition classes. As regards the golf lessons, however, she had had to pay a one-time fee of $250 and the son’s math tuition had increased to $360 per month. As for the daughter, her math tuition classes came up to $180 a month. Additionally, the wife had obtained medical insurance for the children from her employers costing about $300 per year which meant that the children’s medical expenses would be covered by her employer. She also testified that it was going to cost her $4,000 to pay for the daughter’s braces and that the daughter was making a school trip to Germany which would cost her $3,000.

The evidence establishes that the children have grown up in a well-to-do environment. Both their parents have held well paying jobs. Before he was retrenched in 2009, the husband earned about $18,000 a month (there were periods during the marriage when he earned $25,000 a month) and the wife has also been able to draw a good salary, earning from about $8,000 a month to around $11,000 presently. The children are used to a good standard of living which would include meals at restaurants, holidays abroad from time to time and reasonable expenditure on items such as clothes and entertainment. With that in mind, the amounts claimed as spent on food, shoes etc and tuition are not excessive. It appears to me that a reasonable amount for both children’s ordinary maintenance, outside of extraordinary expenditure like braces, would be as follows:

(a)	Food	$1,200
(b)	Phone/pocket money	$400
(c)	Math tuition	$540
(d)	Shoes/clothing etc	$400
(e)	Ballet and golf	$200
(f)	Medical/dental	$100
	Total	$2,840

It should be noted that the wife did not include as part of the children’s expenses a proportionate part of her expenditure on utilities and transport. If those items were added, then the total expenditure on the children would be $3,000 a month or more.

It was the husband’s submission that since the wife is earning more than $10,000 per month as a sales operation manager whilst he has only a gross monthly income of $2,047 as a remisier, the children’s expenses should be shared unequally between them with him paying 30% and the wife paying the remaining 70%. It is true that the husband no longer has salaried employment and that his earnings as a remisier would vary from month to month. The husband, however, is a very capable man. This is a new career for him and that may account for the low level of income he is presently receiving. With his ability, it is not unreasonable to expect his earnings to increase in the future. Further, as would be clear when I go into the details of the matrimonial assets below, the husband has substantial savings in the form of shares and in his interest in the matrimonial property. Accordingly, I consider that he should bear an equal share in the burden of maintaining the children. I therefore order that he pay the sum of $750 per month per child as maintenance (based on a monthly expenditure figure of $3000 for both children). This order shall be back-dated to April 2012 and the husband shall pay the difference between the sum of $600 per month for both children and the new maintenance ordered for the period from April 2012 to the date hereof within four weeks. For the avoidance of doubt, the husband shall continue to pay the monthly maintenance in advance on or before the 7th day of each month. Apart from contributing towards the children’s daily expenses the husband shall also pay half of any extraordinary dental and medical expenses incurred by the children which are not covered by the wife’s insurance and shall reimburse the wife with his share of such expenses upon production of the receipts for the same.

As for the wife, I see no need to make even a nominal maintenance order in her favour. She is gainfully employed, is eight years younger than the husband and has assets. She does not need to rely on the husband for support.

Matrimonial assets Background

The husband is now 54 years of age. In 1995, the year of the marriage, he was 37 years old and had been in gainful employment for some time. In 1994, the husband’s annual income was $211,327 viz. some $17,000 per month. In 1995, he had more than $138,000 in his CPF account and he used money from that account to assist him in the purchase of an apartment in a development known as The Tanamera (“the Tanamera property”) which was bought for $805,000. The Tanamera property was purchased a few months before the marriage and the husband was registered as its sole owner. The husband paid for the Tanamera property via his savings and a bank loan. He paid the instalments of the bank loan from his CPF contributions. The wife made no payments towards the cost of the Tanamera property.

Prior to the marriage, the wife was working in Malaysia. She came to live in Singapore sometime in 1995. After the marriage, she moved into the Tanamera property which then became the couple’s matrimonial home. The wife was then aged 29. The wife obtained a job in Singapore and worked throughout the marriage.

In 2001, the parties purchased a new home, a house in Kew Terrace (“Kew Terrace”), for $1,265,000. It was registered in their joint names. On completion of the purchase, the family moved into Kew Terrace and this remained the matrimonial home until the wife filed for divorce. When the family vacated the Tanamera property, it was rented out and the rental proceeds were paid to the wife until the sale of this property in 2009.

Over the years, whilst the family lived comfortably, both parties also saved a portion of their income. The husband invested in stocks and shares and took pride in the fact that his stock portfolio grew over the years. The wife’s savings went mainly into bank accounts. Both parties also have substantial sums in their CPF accounts. The sum of $678,996 was deposited into the husband’s account upon the sale of the Tanamera property.

The wife purchased a new property in 2011, after her first affidavit of assets and...