UHA v UHB

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Wong Keen Onn
• Judgment Date: 07 August 2018
• Neutral Citation: [2018] SGFC 63
• Court: Family Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: MSS 801386 of 2017
• Year: 2018
• Published date: 22 August 2018
• Hearing Date: 30 April 2018,17 April 2018,25 April 2018,13 March 2018,18 April 2018
• Plaintiff Counsel: Suchitra A/P K Ragupathy (Dentons Rodyk & Davidson LLP)
• Defendant Counsel: Respondent in person
• Subject Matter: Family Law,Maintenance,child,section 69 of Women's Charter
• Citation: [2018] SGFC 63

District Judge Wong Keen Onn: Introduction

This is an application¹ by the complainant mother UHA (“mother”) under section 69 of the Women’s Charter (Cap 353, 2009 Rev Ed) (“the Charter”) for maintenance of their 12-year-old daughter.

Background

The parties were never married to each other. They are the parents of a 12-year-old girl, E (“the child”), born on xxx 2005 under an in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) programme². The Complainant-mother, Mdm UHA (“the mother”), is a Japanese citizen while the Respondent-father, UHB (“the Respondent” or “father”), is an Australian citizen and a Singapore Permanent Resident. The child has dual citizenship in Australia and Japan.

Between October 2007 and December 2014, the child lived with her parents in Singapore. During this time, the father worked here as a general counsel with a sports broadcaster. It was not in dispute that during these 7 years, they were all living together in the same home in Singapore and the Respondent father paid for the rent, utilities, all the household expenses, the child’s expenses and the school fees³. In December 2014, the mother and the child temporarily moved to Japan where the child enrolled in an international school. This was meant to be for one (1) year to immerse child in a Japanese speaking environment to improve her command of the Japanese language. This point is disputed by the mother. In end 2015, the father wanted the child to return to Singapore but the mother refused.

Related proceedings and appeal

Around this time on or about 28 December 2015, the mother filed for a monthly maintenance sum of $5,900 for the child in MSS 5536/2015 (“earlier MSS application”)⁴. She was represented by a counsel in Singapore. The father thereafter on 8 March 2016 filed an originating summons OSG 40/2016 (“OSG 40”) for the return of the child to Singapore.

On 26 April 2017, the Family Court heard OSG 40/2016 and ordered, amongst other things, that the parents shall have joint custody, as well as shared care and control, of the child with the child staying with the mother from Monday morning to Friday morning and with the father from Friday morning to Monday morning. Also, the mother was ordered to return the child from Japan to Singapore by 1 July 2017 (“the Order”). As for her earlier maintenance application (MSS 5536/2015), the mother withdrew it on the first hearing day on 14 February 2017. On 1 July 2017, in compliance with the Order, the mother brought the child to Singapore.

The mother then obtained leave from the High Court in OSN 26/2017⁵ to file a notice of appeal out of time: see UHA v UHB [2017] SGHCF 27. She proceeded to appeal against the Family Court Order. The appeal was heard about 2 weeks after the conclusion of this maintenance hearing. It is pertinent to note that the mother’s appeal was subsequently dismissed by the High Court on 15 May 2018. The High Court also affirmed District Judge’s Order for the child to be returned from Japan to Singapore and for shared care and control of the child.

Current Maintenance application

On 30 April 2018, after hearing and considering the evidence and the documents tendered in, I ordered that: the father is to pay to the mother a monthly maintenance sum of $2,450.00 for the child with effect from 1 July 2017 till 30 October 2017 and from 1 November 2017, he is to pay a monthly maintenance sum of $2,200.00 per month for the child⁶ the father is to pay for 85% and the mother is to pay 15% of all the child’s medical (including hospitalisation expenses) and dental fees incurred if that is not covered by any of the health insurance for the child. If parties are unable to pay for their share for the bill at the same time, the father is to first pay for the child’s medical or dental bills and is to claim reimbursement from the mother within 7 days of production of receipt.⁷ The father is to pay for 85% while the mother is to pay to 15% of all the child’s school textbooks and stationery.⁸ the father is to continue to pay the child’s school fees and miscellaneous fees and costs of school trips/activities directly to the school, the school bus fees to the appointed school transport provider and make the regular top ups to the child’s lunch card to the school’s authorised lunch provider.⁹ The father is to reimburse the mother the sum of $2,612.11 (comprising of the share of additional accommodation expenses of $1,041.31 for the period 1 July 2017 to 14 August 2017, $1,249.50 (85% of $1,470.00) for the child tuition fees for August, September and October 2017, $321.30 (85% of $378) being the extra baggage cost for the child for the flight from Japan to Singapore on 1 July 2017) incurred by the mother within seven (7) days of this Order. The father is to pay to the mother the outstanding maintenance for the months of July 2017 to April 2018 inclusive less $7,500 by 14 May 2018. The father is to pay to the mother costs fixed at $4,500 within fourteen (14) days of this order.

The mother and the father has cross appealed against the maintenance order. I now give the reasons for my decision.

The mother’s arguments and evidence

The Complainant-mother initially claimed in her application that the Respondent-father had neglected or refused to provide reasonable maintenance for the child since December 2016. At the hearing, the Respondent-father had, in resisting this application, objected to the admission of certain documents in Japanese as they were either not translated or that the English version of the documents had not been properly certified as an accurate translation¹⁰. The Complainant counsel then decided to delete them from the bundle Exhibit C-1. These deleted pages of the Complainant-mother’s Affidavit (Exhibit c-1) at pages 14 to 31 (Tabs 5 and 6), 47 to 68A (Tabs 9 and 10), 87 to 111 (Tabs 12 & 13), 118 to 127A (Tabs 15 to 17) were therefore not admitted in as evidence¹¹.

The Complainant-mother also confirmed in cross-examination that she would now claim child maintenance only from 1 July 2017 instead¹². She submitted that his neglect to pay maintenance was supported by or could be deduced from the following evidence and/or reasons¹³: Although the father represented on oath at the earlier hearing of OSG 40/2016 that he would ensure that “the child is provided with accommodation in Singapore”, he categorically refused to do so when he was repeatedly asked in Court on 18 April 2017 whether he is willing to pay for the child’s accommodation¹⁴ Since the day they arrived back to Singapore, the father had, after December 2016, stopped payment towards the maintenance of the child. On the encouragement of the Court in August 2017, the father made only made a one-time payment of $7,500 towards the child expenses¹⁵. The only reason why the father had to pay for the child’s school fees was because he decided to get the student pass so late till the filing of the summons 2536/2017 in order to bolster his chances in his application to take the child to Australia on 4 August 2017¹⁶ The father stopped paying for the child’s lunch card in February 2018 showed clearly that he did not satisfactorily maintain her¹⁷ The father had on 14 June 2017, within 2 months after the relocation order was made, told the mother that he had no income and that she ought to be responsible for the child’s expenses. That was not true and it showed that the father did not want to be responsible for the child’s expenses¹⁸. The father represented at the hearing of the OSG 40/2016 that he was willing to have a discussion with the mother on her expenses in Singapore but less than 2 months later, he had threatened to sue the mother for the child’s admission /fees¹⁹

For the child’s maintenance, the mother asked for a monthly “maintenance sum of $9,200” (and to deduct from this figure the school fees paid by the Father)²⁰ (This would meant that the Father should be paying a monthly sum of $5,903.00 ($9,200 less $3,297) instead. She had strenuously asserted that the child should return to Japan and hence she devoted a large portion of her First Affidavit (Exhibit C-1) on the child’s and her future expenses in Japan there if they were allowed to return to live in Japan²¹.

Next, the mother estimated the child’s monthly expenses in Singapore to be SGD 6,476.79 (inclusive of rental of $4,646.46 per month and for groceries, school lunch card, books, magazine, clothes and shoes, medical insurance premiums, mobile home, transport, pocket money and holidays). On the other hand, the list of child’s expenses in her Monthly Expenses Form showed a total sum of SGD 6,430.00 per month (inclusive of $3,300.00 per month for school fees)²². This figure did not appear to include the child’s school fees (at xxx School) which is about an average of $3,297 per month which is currently paid by the Father directly to the service provider. When questioned about these differences, she explained the figure in the Monthly Expenses Form was just an estimate. She clarified that she wanted to use the figure of SGD 6,476.79 in her Affidavit at paragraph 28 as the child’s reasonable expenses. ²³

The mother also testified as follows: the accommodation costs, based on rental rates of the service apartments in Singapore, ought to be an average of $4,646.46 for the child E for staying with her from Monday to Friday morning (4 nights a week)²⁴. She said the rental fees at her current address at Alexander View²⁵ at the time of the trial was $4,400 per month²⁶. She used to pay $3,300 a month (which rates did vary) for the previous apartment till 1 December 2017 (at least up to 1 December 2017 when she signed the affidavit)²⁷. The rental rate for the same room at unit xxx (Manawa residence) was raised in early 2018²⁸. She had booked the hotel room in Excelsior Hotel for the first 2 weeks in July 2017 and the service apartment from this organisation Metro Residences Singapore Pte Ltd when she was in Japan²...