Lim Ngeok Yuen v Lim Soon Heng Victor

CourtHigh Court (Singapore)
JudgeJudith Prakash J
Judgment Date23 May 2006
Neutral Citation[2006] SGHC 83
Citation[2006] SGHC 83
Published date15 June 2009
Plaintiff CounselMarina Chin (Tan Kok Quan Partnership)
Defendant CounselRichard Ang (Ramani G H & Partners), Troy Yeo (K K Yap & Partners)
Subject MatterFamily Law,Matrimonial assets,Division,Wife having more success in career than husband and having acquired substantially more assets,What constituting fair and equitable distribution of matrimonial assets between parties

23 May 2006

Judith Prakash J:

Introduction

1 The hearing of the ancillary matters relating to these divorce proceedings took place before me in January and February this year. The matters in issue concerned only the division of the matrimonial assets as the wife was not asking for maintenance and the only child of the marriage had long before attained his majority and was independent. On 13 February 2006, I made the following orders:

(1) 335 Bukit Timah Road #13-02 Wing On Life Garden (“Wing On property”) shall be divided between the parties as follows:–

(a) 60% to Petitioner (Wife);

(b) 40% to Respondent (Husband).

(2) The Petitioner shall be entitled to retain the rentals received from the Wing On property up to December 2005 but shall account to the Respondent for 40% of all rentals received from 1 January 2006 less expenses and taxes (excluding personal income tax).

(3) The Petitioner shall retain for herself all her interest in the property known as 261 Arcadia Road #03-04 (“Arcadia property”) and all sums in her CPF account.

(4) The Respondent shall retain for himself all his interest in his funds in his CPF account and all other assets disclosed in these proceedings.

(5) All other current assets already held by the Petitioner as disclosed shall be divided [by giving] 80% [of the value thereof] to the Petitioner and 20% to the Respondent provided that:–

(a) Before undertaking the division, the Petitioner shall be entitled to deduct:–

(i) $25,500.00 representing the tenant’s rental deposit;

(ii) $36,630.24 representing the income tax payable by the Petitioner in relation to her retirement fund for the year of assessment 2005;

(iii) The income tax payable by the Petitioner in relation to her retirement fund for the year of assessment 2006;

(iv) $223,822.46 representing the amount paid, inclusive of expenses, to redeem the mortgage on the Arcadia property.

(b) The Petitioner shall not be obliged to exercise any of the stock options currently vested in her. However, if she chooses in her discretion to do so, then she shall at such time transfer 20% of the proceeds received (less expenses and taxes if any incurred) to the Respondent.

(6) The Respondent shall at his own expense open the necessary accounts to take all such other necessary steps to enable the Petitioner to effect transfers of shares in companies (whether local or foreign), units trusts and monies (whether in local or foreign currencies) to the Respondent. The Respondent shall bear all expenses related to the transfers.

(7) After taking into account the deductions referred to in Clause 5(a) of this Order, the amounts in terms of monies and shares to be transferred to the Respondent are as follows:

1.

USD103,646.71

2.

EURO 17,367.61

3.

GBP 29,234.11

4.

AUD 70,109.80

5.

USD 3,042.62

6.

HKD 704.03

7.

HKD 10,343,46

8.

HKD 8,783.54

9.

S$16,243.83

10.

S$44,893.63

11.

9,353.31 units in the Enhanced Income Fund

12.

6,835.27 units in the Shenton Income Fund

13.

S$1,454.71

14.

S$20,030.68

15.

S$1,391.80 in relation to Avaplas shares

16.

Brilliant Manufacturing – 2,000 shares

17.

CapitalComm – 360 shares

18.

CapitaLand – 1,800 shares

19.

CapitalMall – 5,500 shares

20.

Cerebos Pac – 1,000 shares

21.

China Av oil – 1,000 shares

22.

S$2,803.49 in relation to City Dev Shares

23.

DBS – 1094 shares

24.

S$6,243.24 in relation to Hyflux shares

25.

S$315.40 in relation to Mediaring shares

26.

S$3,664.90 in relation to Semb Log shares

27.

SFI – 1000 shares

28.

Singtel – 1896 shares

29.

SPH – 400 shares

30.

UOB – 600 shares

31.

CNOOC – 10,000 shares

32.

S$4,188.91 in relation to the petitioner’s retirement fund

(8) Wing On property shall be sold in the open market. The sale shall be conducted in accordance with the following terms:–

(a) The parties shall jointly appoint a valuer to conduct a new valuation of the Wing On property and the reserve price for the sale shall be the sum of the value so determined and $100,000.

(b) The sale shall be conducted by an agent [who has been] jointly appointed [by the parties].

(c) If no other matching or higher price than the reserve price is received by 31 May 2006, the parties may agree to accept the highest offer, but if this course is not acceptable to both, then both parties shall be entitled to put in a sealed bid for the property on or before 7 June 2006, and the property shall be sold to the higher bidder provided such bid is above the highest offer received from a third party.

(d) If neither party is interested in purchasing the property, they shall proceed to sell it by public auction.

(9) Liberty to both parties to apply.

(10) No order as to costs.

2 The respondent, whom I shall hereafter refer to as the “husband”, has appealed against all of the above orders. The petitioner, whom I shall hereafter refer to as the “wife”, is almost equally dissatisfied and has appealed against all the orders except orders (3), (4) and (8).

The background

3 The parties were married in September 1975. The marriage took place in London as the wife, an accountant, was then working in the London office of an accountancy firm. She had been with that firm since 1971. At the time of the marriage, the husband was a sales manager with a firm selling construction and engineering equipment. Both parties had been working since the early 1970s.

4 Shortly after the marriage, the wife returned to Singapore and rejoined the Singapore office of the same firm. In August 1976, their son, Darren, was born.

5 These divorce proceedings were commenced by the wife in August 2003 on the ground of the parties having lived separately and apart for four years. The husband responded by filing an answer and cross-petition on the basis of the alleged adultery of the wife with the party cited and unreasonable behaviour. Eventually, the decree nisi was granted in August 2004 on both the petition and the cross-petition. Neither party contested the other’s petition in the end. The ancillary matters were, however, more strongly disputed.

6 This was an uncommon case in that the wife had been more successful in her career than the husband and had, thus, acquired substantially more assets than he had. The usual positions found in divorce proceedings were therefore reversed and here it was the husband who was fighting for a larger share of the matrimonial assets ostensibly belonging to the wife and the wife who was trying to limit his claim. There was no real dispute over the fact that the assets in the parties’ respective names were matrimonial assets in the sense that they had been acquired after the marriage. There was only one exception to this and that related to certain stock options that the wife had been given by Shell that were not vested in her until after the date of the decree nisi. The main issue I had to determine was what would be a fair and equitable distribution of the assets between the parties.

The real properties acquired

7 In 1976, the parties acquired their first matrimonial home, a semi-detached house at 155 Tanah Merah Kechil Road (“the Tanah Merah property”). They held it as joint tenants. The purchase price was $140,000 and the total acquisition cost including stamp fees, legal fees, additional work and mortgage insurance premium came up to $151,200. The parties paid $31,200 in cash and the remaining $120,000 was financed by a bank loan. Subsequently, when the wife joined Shell in 1977, the loan was refinanced by a Shell-sponsored bank loan at a preferential interest rate. The husband claimed that he had paid most of the cash outgoings of $31,200 and that since the wife was paying the monthly mortgage instalments from her salary, he had paid most of the household and other family expenses. The wife, for her part, was prepared to assume that each party had contributed equally to the cash outlay of $31,200. She disputed that the husband had paid the household expenses and said that she had paid the bulk of these.

8 In 1983, the husband started a business called Comana Engineering Pte Ltd (“Comana”). The company was involved in the construction industry.

9 In 1986, the Tanah Merah property was sold for $395,000. The net proceeds after settlement of the loan and the expenses of the sale including rental and utility charges for temporary accommodation came to $289,958.48. From this sum, an additional amount of $150,000 was paid to DBS Bank Ltd (“DBS”) as “redemption money”. The wife claimed that this was to discharge the husband’s liability to DBS as guarantor for the debts of Comana. The husband did not deny that he had guaranteed Comana’s debts though he did not remember this payment. He said that even if a loan had been taken on Comana’s behalf, that was meant for the business and it entitled him to a decent salary to support the family including the purchase and upkeep of the Tanah Merah property. Whatever was left over from the sale of the Tanah Merah property was kept by the wife. She took the view that it was her entitlement as she had paid 83% of the cost of that property and the husband, because of the settlement of the debt to DBS, had overdrawn his share of the sale proceeds.

10 The next property purchased by the parties was a bungalow at 33 Olive Road (“the Olive Road property”). This was a bungalow bought in 1986 for $980,000. The Olive Road property was held by the parties as tenants-in-common with the wife having a 90% share and the husband a 10% share. At that time, Comana was not doing well. The wife wanted the Olive Road property clearly divided based on a ratio that would reflect how the financial burden for the acquisition of the property would be undertaken. The total cost of the property including various fees was $1,017,435.40. The parties also spent moneys on renovation costs. The wife estimated these to be a minimum of $130,000 and produced invoices establishing at least $90,000 was...

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6 cases
  • Wee Chiaw Sek Anna v Ng Li-Ann Genevieve
    • Singapore
    • Court of Appeal (Singapore)
    • 28 d5 Junho d5 2013
    ...Pty Ltd v Applebee (1964) 110 CLR 656 (refd) Koh Cheong Heng v Ho Yee Fong [2011] 3 SLR 125 (distd) Lim Ngeok Yuen v Lim Soon Heng Victor [2006] SGHC 83 (distd) Lipkin Gorman v Karpnale Ltd [1991] 2 AC 548 (refd) Muschinski v Dodds (1985) 160 CLR 583 (refd) Ng Chee Chuan v Ng Ai Tee [2009] ......
  • BCB v BCC
    • Singapore
    • Court of Appeal (Singapore)
    • 28 d1 Janeiro d1 2013
    ...present time), has in fact been considered by our courts. In the Singapore High Court decision of Lim Ngeok Yuen v Lim Soon Heng Victor [2006] SGHC 83 (“Lim Ngeok Yuen”), for example, the marriage lasted for about 29 years and there was one child of the marriage. As the court in that case d......
  • Wee Chiaw Sek Anna v Ng Li-Ann Genevieve (sole executrix of the estate of Ng Hock Seng, deceased) and another
    • Singapore
    • Court of Appeal (Singapore)
    • 28 d5 Junho d5 2013
    ...be difficult to determine. The First Respondent’s reliance on the Singapore High Court decision of Lim Ngeok Yuen v Lim Soon Heng Victor [2006] SGHC 83 (“Lim Ngeok Yuen”) as support for the proposition that assets could be excluded from the time the parties separated does not assist her cas......
  • Yeo Chong Lin v Tay Ang Choo Nancy and another appeal
    • Singapore
    • Court of Appeal (Singapore)
    • 25 d5 Março d5 2011
    ...Hwee May Kathryn v Geh Thien Ee Martin and another [2007] 3 SLR(R) 663 (“Yap Hwee May Kathryn”) and Lim Ngeok Yuen v Lim Soon Heng Victor [2006] SGHC 83, held that the operative date for the purposes of determining matrimonial assets should be the date on which the decree nisi was issued (s......
  • Request a trial to view additional results
1 books & journal articles
  • Family Law
    • Singapore
    • Singapore Academy of Law Annual Review No. 2006, December 2006
    • 1 d5 Dezembro d5 2006
    ...She had been a housewife for most of the marriage and did not contribute financially. 14.27 In Lim Ngeok Yuen v Lim Soon Heng Victor[2006] SGHC 83, the wife had been the main financial provider for a marriage of 29 years. The husband”s employment had been patchy, but he had worked throughou......

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