O'Connor Rosamund Monica v Potter Derek John

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Lai Siu Chiu J
• Judgment Date: 18 November 2009
• Neutral Citation: [2009] SGHC 258
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Published date: 23 November 2009
• Citation: [2009] SGHC 258
• Plaintiff Counsel: G Raman (G R Law Corporation)
• Defendant Counsel: Kanyakumari and Serene Gan (Tan Kok Quan Partnership)
• Subject Matter: Family Law
• Year: 2009

18 November 2009

Lai Siu Chiu J:

Introduction

1 The proceedings before me concerned the division of the matrimonial assets between a couple O’Connor Rosamund Monica (“the wife”) and Derek John Potter (“the husband”) pursuant to their divorce. I ordered, inter alia, that the wife and the husband receive two-thirds and one-third share respectively in the parties’ matrimonial home, that the parties retain their own assets and that the husband should pay the wife a lump sum of $50,000 as maintenance. As the wife has filed a notice of appeal (in Civil Appeal No 132 of 2009) against my orders, I now set out the reasons for my decision.

Background

2 The wife, a Singaporean from a relatively well-off family,^{[note: 1]}married the husband on 19 September 1986.^{[note: 2]} The husband, a British citizen and permanent resident of Singapore, had resided here for three decades or so.^{[note: 3]} They have no children. The wife was a person of some talent. She was a linguist^{[note: 4]} and had obtained, in 2003, a degree in Fine Art (Painting) from the La Salle College of the Arts.^{[note: 5]} The husband paid for the wife’s degree exclusively. The wife was also good at sales. Before resigning from her job in 1991, the wife sold advertisements in an oil-industry related magazine. She performed exceptionally well and was rewarded by her employer with two first-class air tickets for a trip around the world and two yacht cruises.^{[note: 6]} She made the trips with the husband.

3 The husband too was successful. He was a professional engineer by training^{[note: 7]} and had formerly served with the British Navy before making most of his money as an oil trader. In their happier times, the husband paid for the parties’ many family holidays to countries in Europe, North America, Australasia and the Middle East.

4 The parties enjoyed other luxuries. The husband had purchased, for the parties’ enjoyment, memberships in various country clubs, namely the Changi Sailing Club, the Republic of Singapore Yacht Club, the Keppel Club, the Tanglin Club and the Singapore Island Country Club.^{[note: 8]} Because the husband owned a yacht which he had purchased prior to the parties’ marriage, the couple also went on many boat trips. While the husband owned the yacht, the wife helped maintain it by regularly scrubbing and varnishing the decks.^{[note: 9]} Apart from the yacht trips, the couple would also visit Cameron Highlands where they would stay at the plaintiff’s family villa and London where they would stay at the wife’s uncle’s apartment.^{[note: 10]}

5 It was perhaps this love for travel that led the husband to organise tours on behalf of the Singapore Nature Society and the National University of Singapore to East Asian countries after he had retired.^{[note: 11]} The wife played her part in helping him to organise these trips.^{[note: 12]} In his retirement, the husband also wrote a guidebook on golfing in Malaysia which the wife had helped to edit, publish and market.^{[note: 13]} To many, the parties appeared to have a happy and enviable marriage, and perhaps, at a time in the distant past, they did.

6 Beneath the happy veneer however, cracks started to appear in the marriage. Even before they were married, the wife had contracted Herpes and Chlamydia (sexually transmitted diseases) from the husband.^{[note: 14]} Herpes causes painful outbreaks of lesions and because of this, the wife claimed, she stopped working full-time in 1991 shortly after her marriage^{[note: 15]} although she did, making use of her artistic talent, take on silver and goldsmith projects at a workshop in Far East Shopping Centre for about two years.^{[note: 16]} As a result of contracting Chlamydia, the wife also suffered from scarring to her uterus which led to her being unable to conceive and this was why the couple was childless.^{[note: 17]} There were many other unhappy episodes in the parties’ marriage including allegations of affairs the details of which it would not be necessary to mention.

7 Eventually, after more than two decades of marriage, the parties were divorced on 14 October 2008 on the ground of irretrievable breakdown of their marriage by reason of their living apart for a continuous period of at least four years prior to the application for divorce.

The parties’ proposals on division of matrimonial assets and maintenance

8 On the issues of division of the parties’ matrimonial assets and maintenance, the wife proposed that she be awarded the following:

(a)	The entire share in the parties’ matrimonial home at Block 79, Farrer Drive, #05-03, Sommerville Park (“Sommerville Park Apartment”) valued at approximately $1.75m;
(b)	The Singapore Island Country Club membership;
(c)	A lump sum of $180,000 for maintenance backdated for the three years preceding the hearing of this application at $5,000 a month;
(d)	A lump sum of $600,000 for her future maintenance in lieu of 30% of the defendant’s personal assets.

9 The husband counter-proposed the following:

(a)	the Sommerville Park Apartment be sold and the net proceeds, (less reimbursement to the parties’ Central Provident Funds of withdrawals that were made for the purchase) be divided equally;
(b)	That the parties be allowed to retain their other personal assets;
(c)	That the wife receives no maintenance;
(d)	That the husband reimburses the wife a sum of $10,000 which she had paid towards the Tanglin Club membership.

The decision

10 Section 112 of the Women’s Charter (Cap 353, 1997 Rev Ed) confers upon the court the power to order a division of the matrimonial assets. Section 112(1) provides that:

The court shall have power, when granting or subsequent to the grant of a judgment of divorce, judicial separation or nullity of marriage, to order the division between the parties of any matrimonial asset or the sale of any such asset and the division between the parties of the proceeds of the sale of any such asset in such proportions as the court thinks just and equitable.

11 In exercising its discretion under s 112(1), the court will consider the following factors provided for in s 112(2):

(a) the extent of the contributions made by each party in money, property or work towards acquiring, improving or maintaining the matrimonial assets;

(b) any debt owing or obligation incurred or undertaken by either party for their joint benefit or for the benefit of any child of the marriage;

(c) the needs of the children (if any) of the marriage;

(d) the extent of the contributions made by each party to the welfare of the family, including looking after the home or caring for the family or any aged or infirm relative or dependant of either party;

(e) any agreement between the parties with respect to the ownership and division of the matrimonial assets made in contemplation of divorce;

(f) any period of rent-free occupation or other benefit enjoyed by one party in the matrimonial home to the exclusion of the other party;

(g) the giving of assistance or support by one party to the other party (whether or not of a material kind), including the giving of assistance or support which aids the other party in the carrying on of his or her occupation or business; and

(h) the matters referred to in section 114(1) so far as they are relevant.

12 Section 112 has been considered in innumerable cases. It is well-established that the court is to exercise its discretion in broad strokes rather than by way of an unrealistic mathematical approach (see Lock Yeng Fun v Chua Hock Chye [2007] 3 SLR 520 at [33]). In exercising its discretion, the court will focus on achieving a fair and reasonable division (Id.). With these principles in mind, I turn to the present case.

13 The wife wanted the entire share of the Sommerville Park Apartment but failed to provide good reasons in support. Her primary argument was that the husband had not truly contributed equally to the purchase price of the property.^{[note: 18]} She claimed and this was not contested by the defendant, that payment of the Sommerville Park Apartment was made in part from the sale proceeds of another property at 47B Jalan Arnap (“the Kim Lim property”) previously owned by the parties. Because (so the wife claimed) the husband had only contributed $144,000 to the purchase of the Kim Lim property whilst she had contributed $232,375.93, she should be regarded to have contributed more, financially, to the purchase of Sommerville Park Apartment since it was paid in part with the sale proceeds of the Kim Lim property.

14 With respect, it seemed to me that the wife was taking an unrealistically mathematical approach to quantifying the parties’ contributions. Even if she had paid more for the Kim Lim property (which I disbelieved for the reasons set out below) and may in a sense, be regarded to have contributed more towards the purchase of the Sommerville Park Apartment since it was paid in part with the sale proceeds of the former, the husband had paid the rental of the apartments the parties had lived in for three years from 2001 to 2004 after the Kim Lim property was sold (en-bloc for $2,024,193.54) before the couple purchased and moved into the Sommerville Park Apartment in November 2003.^{[note: 19]}

15 In any case, it was unlikely that the wife had paid more for the Kim Lim property. The husband had paid the wife’s sister $88,000 in October 1988 to buy over the sister’s half interest in the same. He had also paid rent to the wife’s sister when he moved in to live with the wife before he bought over the sister’s share. According to the wife’s first affidavit of means, the husband then serviced the interest of about $1,300 on the outstanding mortgage loan of $82,786.60 (from NTUC Income) from 1988 to 2001. The annual mortgage instalments paid by the husband would have totalled...