Tan Evelyn v Tan Lim Tai

JudgeA V Winslow J
Judgment Date17 August 1973
Neutral Citation[1973] SGHC 19
Citation[1973] SGHC 19
Defendant CounselHo Ung Tuck (Murphy & Dunbar)
Published date19 September 2003
Date17 August 1973
Docket NumberOriginating Summons No 75 of 1973
CourtHigh Court (Singapore)
Plaintiff CounselJoshua Lim (Assistant Director of Legal Aid)

By this originating summons, the plaintiff/wife who has been living separately from the defendant/husband since 1970, seeks a determination by the court under s 55 of the Women`s Charter (Cap 47, 1970 Ed) that she is entitled to a half-share in the proceeds of sale of the matrimonial home at no 1 Tham Soong Avenue, Singapore.

This property was purchased in the name of the husband on 1 April 1960 for $19,500 and sold for $46,000 in 1971.
A down-payment of $4,600 was originally made leaving a balance of $14,900 to be repaid by monthly instalments of $127.90 over 15 years on a loan from the Malaya Borneo Building Society which held a mortgage on the property until it was sold in 1971 after redemption. According to Ex `TLT 1` filed with the defendant`s affidavit of 11 April 1973, outgoings by way of redemption monies, solicitors` costs and commission amounting to $5,281.41 were paid out of the proceeds of sale leaving, approximately $40,800 as the proceeds available for division between the parties should I decide that the wife is entitled to a share therein. As I said at the conclusion of the hearing on 21 June 1973, I had no doubt then that she was so entitled, the only question on which I reserved judgment being the quantum of that share.

The husband gave his mother $9,000 out of this balance on the basis that that was the amount he claims he received from her towards the purchase of the house and for improvement (including furniture and chinaware which she has recovered).
Be that as it may, only that part of it relating to actual purchase of the house and capital improvements should be borne by the beneficial owner or owners. It is conceded by the wife that the mother made an initial contribution of $6,000. I find on the evidence that $7,500 and not $9,000 should be borne by the owner or owners and that this sum should be deducted in the final accounting on the basis that it was a loan to the beneficial owner or owners of the house. The mother said that she advanced additionally sums of money to him to indulge his penchant for cars and other activities amounting to $4,000 or $5,000. She reluctantly agreed that he was a spendthrift. These sums of money like expenditure on furniture, etc have nothing to do with the value of the house itself.

It is undisputed that the wife handed over her whole pay packet every month to her husband from November 1958 onwards soon after their marriage until according to her, she was forced to leave the matrimonial home and live separately from him at the end of December 1970.
Her pay ranged from $200pm in 1960 to $345 in 1970 as a clerk with the Ministry of Education. He is a schoolmaster in Government Service whose salary ranged from $560pm in 1960 to $900pm in 1970. Out of her pay packet he returned $20 to $30pm to her as pocket-money and claimed that he spent some $10 pm himself on her clothing and another $40 on cosmetics, transport, etc. He otherwise maintained her somewhat frugally at a cost of about $80pm on her food from the common pool of their joint earnings less what he paid her as pocket money until 1961 when his mother came to live with them.

She struck me as being a simple, thrifty, homely and uncomplaining kind of wife without any pretensions to glamour or luxury or a way of living inconsistent with her own earnings had she lived as a single woman.
She was however married and she entrusted her whole pay packet to her husband although he could have maintained her on his own salary without aid from her income. Additionally, she made various purchases towards the maintenance of comfort in the matrimonial home. She also provided him with some money after pawning her jewellery. I am not, however, taking these additional expenses into account in assessing her contribution towards the purchase of the house itself as many of them concern moveable property. It seems only right that like the mother`s expenses on furniture these amounts should be ignored.

I accept the wife as a truthful witness whose evidence I accept substantially.
I cannot say the same about the husband who was evasive, contradictory and reluctant to give credit where credit was obviously due to any contribution by his wife towards the purchase of the matrimonial home. He claimed that she `thrust` her pay packet on him. He even said that he had spent her pay packet on luxuries for both of them. I do not find on the facts that he spent her money on any extraordinary luxuries for her. It would be more correct to say that he gave her little more than the bare necessities of life even with the aid of her own pay packet quite apart from his duty as a husband to maintain her out of his own earnings which he was able to do. It must have come as a big surprise to him that his wife`s counsel was so well-informed about his enthusiasm for motor cars, which at first he denied, until confronted with details of the various cars he had owned in the past. Even his own mother agreed that he was a spendthrift and I have no reason to doubt his wife`s version that he was stingy so far as she was concerned and provided her with few of the normal social amenities accorded to wives of men of his station in life to relieve the drudgery of a humdrum existence to which he consigned her.

I accept her evidence as against his that she
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1 cases
  • PQR (mw) v STR
    • Singapore
    • High Court (Singapore)
    • 4 de dezembro de 1992
    ... ... Rather, as the defendant pointed out and the plaintiff admits, she was totally unaware of the amount of mortgage repayments due each month. This points to the plaintiff seeing the mortgage repayments as the defendant`s liability and not a shared one.The cases of Evelyn Tan v Tan Lim Ta i7 and Lau Choong Choo v Chou We Chuan 8 are cited in support of submissions for the plaintiff. (Both are cases under s 56, Women`s Charter, then numbered 55.) Each of these two cases may however, be distinguished on the following grounds.In Evelyn Tan `s case7 the wife ... ...
1 books & journal articles
  • Case Note
    • Singapore
    • Singapore Academy of Law Journal No. 2015, December 2015
    • 1 de dezembro de 2015
    ...Chidambaram, “The ‘We’ Dream is Over, the ‘Yours’ or ‘Mine’ Reality Begins”(1980) 22 Mal LR 293 at 293; Tan Evelyn v Tan Lim Tai[1971-1973] SLR(R) 771 at [19]. 95Pettitt v Pettitt[1970] AC 777 at 811. 96 This was via the Women's Charter (Amendment) Act 1980 (Act 26 of 1980). 97 Barry Crown,......

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