BNH v BNI

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: George Wei JC
• Judgment Date: 30 December 2013
• Neutral Citation: [2013] SGHC 283
• Plaintiff Counsel: Foo Siew Fong (Harry Elias Partnership LLP)
• Docket Number: Divorce Transferred No 4659 of 2012
• Date: 2013
• Hearing Date: 01 October 2013
• Subject Matter: Family Law,maintenance,wife,matrimonial assets,child,division
• Published date: 23 January 2014
• Citation: [2013] SGHC 283
• Defendant Counsel: Loy Wee Sun (Loy & Co)
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Year: 2013

George Wei JC: Introduction

This is my judgment in respect of the ancillary matters in Divorce Transferred No 4659 of 2011. The parties have agreed on joint custody of the children with care and control to the plaintiff–wife (“the Wife”) with reasonable access to the defendant–husband (“the Husband”) and the matters which remain are the division of the matrimonial assets, maintenance for the wife and children, and the costs of these proceedings. There is also a secondary legal issue concerning whether the Wife should be allowed to claim costs of a private investigation report from the Husband.

After hearing the parties, my decision is that the Wife is to receive 25% of the nett value of a property known as the [VS] property in full and final satisfaction of her claim in the matrimonial assets. As for the issue of maintenance, the Wife is awarded a nominal sum of $1 per month, and the children a sum of $9,500 per month. The maintenance for the children is to be borne equally by the Wife and the Husband; the Husband is accordingly liable to pay $4,750 per month to the Wife as maintenance for the children. The Husband is to pay the Wife $10,000 that being the cost the Wife is allowed to claim for the private investigation report.

The Facts The Parties and their marriage

The Wife is 35 years old and is a dentist employed by [PD] Pte Ltd, and holds the title of Associate Dental Surgeon. The Husband is 42 years old and is employed by [AU], and holds the title of Regional Chief Investment Officer, CIO APAC.

The parties were married on 16 December 2003, and there are two children of the marriage. They are: [TY] – six years old, daughter; and [CT] – four years old, son.

Milestones in the marriage

In 2003, the Wife left for the United States for a three-year course to pursue her post-graduate studies. In mid-2006, the Wife returned and the couple resided in [address redacted] (“the [EH] Property”), which was a property the Husband had purchased in 2002. Following the sale of the [EH] Property in 2006, the parties purchased a three-storey penthouse at [address redacted] Singapore XXX895 (“the [VS] Property”) registered in their joint names. They took possession sometime in mid-2007.

The marriage began to breakdown and in September 2012, the Wife with the children left the [VS] Property to stay with her parents. The Wife commenced divorce proceedings on 26 September 2012 and interim judgment of divorce was granted on 10 January 2013.

Division of matrimonial assets

The starting point for the division of matrimonial assets is s 112(1) of the Women’s Charter (Cap 353, 2009 Rev Ed) (“WC”) which gives the court the power to order division of matrimonial assets and a wide discretion in doing so. Section 112(2) further provides for certain factors to be considered, and these are not exhaustive.

Other potential matrimonial assets

I start off first with the general financial positions of the parties with respect to the matrimonial assets that were in their individual names. While the main matrimonial asset was the [VS] Property, it is important to consider the potential pool of matrimonial assets that is to be divided. Not including the [VS] Property, counsel for the parties submitted different figures for the pool of matrimonial assets: counsel for the Wife submitted a value of approximately $1,276,867.36¹ (the Husband’s total being $988,235 and the Wife’s total being $288,632.36), while counsel for the Husband submitted a figure of $744,326.48.² The difference is largely attributable to differing values for the Husband’s other assets. A comparison of these figures is set out in the table below:

Item	Wife’s figures3	Husband’s figures4
CPF	$404,933.77 (total of sum in CPF Ordinary, Medisave and Special accounts)	$362,357.77
Bank accounts	$226,888.24	$9,178.10
Shares (in UBS)	$77,964	$106,076.20
Husband’s car	$155,000	$0

As can be seen, there is a significant difference in the valuation of the Husband’s bank accounts and car. As the car was still subject to an outstanding hire purchase loan, I am inclined to prefer the Husband’s figure of $0 in this case. Likewise, the wife had mistakenly considered the sum in the Husband’s OCBC overdraft account no [XXX]-[XXX]-[XXX]-001 as a credit (in the positive), when in fact it was a debit (in the negative) given that it was an overdraft account.⁵ This amounted to a total difference of $372,710.14:

Item	Difference (Wife’s value less actual value)
Bank accounts	$226,888.24 − $9,178.10 = $217,710.14
Car	$155,000 − $0 = $155,000
Total difference	$372,710.14

Deducting this from the Wife’s submitted value of $1,276,867, this would bring the Wife’s asserted figure down to $904,156.86 (meaning that the Husband’s total assets amounted to $988,235 − $372,710.14 = $615,524.86 and Wife’s total assets amounted to $288,632.36), which is comparatively closer to the Husband’s submitted figure of $744,326.48. Given the oft-differing positions that the parties have taken on financial matters and that the figures were continually changing due to various contributions and withdrawals by the parties, I found it helpful to use the average figure of $824,241.67 in considering the pool of matrimonial assets to be divided. Using this figure, the adjusted figures for the values of the assets held by each party will be as follows:

Wife’s submitted value for Wife’s assets	Husband’s submitted value for Wife’s assets6	Average
$288,632.36	$211,389.63	$250,011
Wife’s submitted value for Husband’s assets	Husband’s submitted value for Husband’s assets7	Average
$615,624.86 (adjusted)	$532,936.85	$574,280.85

Husband – $574,280.85 (approximately 70%); and Wife – $250,011 (approximately 30%). To me, this is a fairer representation of the share of assets held by parties, and also accords well with the fact that the Husband’s income was about twice that of the Wife’s. That said, while it is clear that the Husband is financially more able (and understandably so given his higher income), the difference in financial standing was not as stark as the Wife had submitted. Direct contributions to the [VS] Property

There is not much dispute as to sources of the bulk of the direct contributions to the [VS] Property, which were the sale proceeds of the [EH] Property, contributions from the Wife’s CPF, and contributions by the Husband to the mortgage repayments and renovations. However, the main dispute lies in how the proceeds of the [EH] Property should be “attributed” to the contributions of each party, as well as the Wife’s contributions to the payment of mortgage loans and renovations.

I deal first with the Wife’s submission that the sale proceeds of the [EH] Property should be equally attributed to both parties. In calculating her direct contributions, counsel for the Wife submitted that the Wife contributed approximately 43% to the purchase of the [VS] Property. This was based on the assumption that the sale proceeds of the [EH] Property, calculated to be $833,612,⁸ was to be equally attributed to each party (ie, the contribution of the Wife would be $833,612 divided by two).

As briefly stated above, the [EH] Property was purchased by the Husband in 2002, assumingly with his own funds⁹ as the Wife has not submitted or tendered evidence showing otherwise. While the parties had married in 2003, they only moved in to the [EH] Property in mid-2006 when the Wife returned from her overseas studies. Very shortly after, [EH] Property was sold, and the [VS] Property was purchased. As such, it is clear that the [EH] Property was only used as the matrimonial home for a short period of time.

It is trite that the matrimonial home forms part of the assets to be divided. However, I found it rather surprising that counsel submitted that this, on its own, meant that 50% of the sale proceeds of the [EH] Property should be attributed to the Wife in considering the contributions to the purchase of the [VS] Property. Given the relatively short length of marriage at that point in time, and that the Wife was effectively overseas for 3 years (a point I will consider in further detail in considering indirect contributions later below), I am not inclined to adopt the Wife’s position. If the sale proceeds of a previous matrimonial home were to be considered, it would be inherently more just to consider a hypothetical division of the home at that point in time given parties’ various contributions (both direct and indirect). Therefore, I am more inclined to prefer the Husband’s position that the sale proceeds of the [EH] Property should be largely attributed to his contributions.

I now address the Wife’s submissions that she had contributed a sum of $52,700 to the mortgage repayments and a sum of $40,000 for renovations. I note that the Husband continues to pay the monthly instalments of the housing loan to this day, while the Wife contributes about $1,485 from her CPF accounts on a monthly basis. The total amount of the housing loan instalments is about $8,500 per month. Adopting the figures as submitted by the Husband, this table sets out the contributions of the parties:

Source	Husband	Wife
Cash payments	$650,000	$0
CPF payments	$0	$100,980
Mortgage repayments	$646,000	$0
Total	$1,296,000	$100,980
Percentage	92.77%	7.23%

Although the Wife submitted that she had contributed $40,000 to renovations, I also note that the Husband likewise stated in his affidavit of assets and means¹⁰ that he had contributed about $95,000 to renovating the house, and $66,097 to other improvements. This was supported by invoices furnished by the Husband in his second affidavit for ancillary matters.¹¹ In fact, in her...