TEE v TEF

• Court: Family Court (Singapore)
• Judge: Sowaran Singh
• Judgment Date: 27 July 2015
• Neutral Citation: [2015] SGFC 103
• Citation: [2015] SGFC 103
• Docket Number: Divorce Petition No. 2236 of 2012
• Published date: 09 September 2015
• Hearing Date: 19 May 2015,26 March 2015
• Plaintiff Counsel: Ms Lim Poh Choo (M/s Alan Shankar & Lim LLC)
• Defendant Counsel: Ms Ng Hui-Li Felicia/Ms. Rapinder Kaur (M/s COMLAW LLC)
• Subject Matter: Catchwords: Family Law,ancillary proceedings,Family Law,division of matrimonial assets

District Judge Sowaran Singh: Background

These Grounds of Decision are supplementary to those given on the 8 June 2015 in HCF/DCA No.90 of 2015 and which are reported at [2015] SGFC 80. Those Grounds (the previous GD) were rendered on account of an appeal filed by the Defendant on the 2 June 2015. Subsequently, the Plaintiff filed an appeal on the 24 July 2015 after obtaining leave to do so out of time (in HCF/SM 357/2015 on the 20 July 2015 from the High Court). It would be useful to restate the brief background here. The Plaintiff (wife/mother) and the Defendant (husband/father) married in May 1984 and have a daughter from the union who is now an adult². It was a long marriage. On the 10 May 2012 the wife filed for a divorce based on the husband’s unreasonable behaviour. The husband was described³ as being 50 year-old country manager whilst the wife was a 50-year-old distribution manager. Interim Judgment (IJ) was granted on the 23 July 2012 and the ancillaries which were adjourned to Chambers came up for hearing on the 19 May 2015.

The Wife’s Appeal

In the wife’s Notice of Appeal dated the 24 July 2015, she appeals against the orders of the court relating to: the payment of the outstanding mortgage for the matrimonial home (the home), the vehicle No. xxx, membership of the xxx that each party keep all other assets that were in their sole names, maintenance for her and the order that each party bear their own costs. The court will now deal with these issues.

On the 7 July 2015 the Court of Appeal handed down its decision in ANJ v ANK [2015 SGCA 34 which was not available to the parties when the court heard this case on the 19 May 2015. Having regard to the decision in ANJ v ANK,⁴ it would appear that the court’s award to the wife had double counting on account of the uplifts⁵ thereby ending up in an overly generous award. However, even discounting the element of double counting⁶ the wife did not receive an overly generous award as she would still be entitled to at least about 75% of their net assets if the double counting was eliminated. She received $1,279,000 (around 73%). As each party would get to keep all their other assets, the husband would be left with about $463,000 odd (or 27%)⁷. This was close to what in fact the husband submitted that the wife was entitled to⁸.

In respect of the vehicle No. xxx the court noted that it was to be transferred to the wife and it was right that she bear the outstanding hire-purchase loan upon the...