ULH v ULI

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Guy Ghazali
• Judgment Date: 25 April 2018
• Neutral Citation: [2018] SGFC 39
• Court: Family Court (Singapore)
• Hearing Date: 22 December 2017,12 January 2018
• Docket Number: FC/D 5793/2016
• Plaintiff Counsel: Mr Patrick Fernandez (Fernandez LLC)
• Defendant Counsel: Defendant-in-person
• Subject Matter: Ancillary matters - Division of matrimonial assets - Maintenance of wife
• Published date: 27 April 2018

District Judge Guy Ghazali: Introduction

The Plaintiff (hereinafter referred to as “the Wife”) and the Defendant (hereinafter referred to as “the Husband”) married on 28 November 2008. There is one child to the marriage, [M], female, 5 years of age (born in 2012). As at the date of the filing of the parties’ respective Affidavit of Means around September/October 2017, the Wife was 29 years old while the Husband was 55 years old. The Wife is a Chinese citizen and Singapore Permanent Resident. The Husband is a Singapore citizen.

The Wife filed the Writ for Divorce on 29 November 2016. In the Wife’s Statement of Claim, the Wife, among other things, prayed for the marriage to be dissolved by reason that the Husband has behaved in such a way that the Wife cannot reasonably be expected to live with the Husband. The Wife’s claim for divorce was resisted by the Husband. The contested divorce was heard over two days, namely on, 4 May 2017 and 7 June 2017. On 7 June 2017, I granted an Interim Judgment of Divorce on the Wife’s aforementioned claim and reserved costs of the divorce hearing to the ancillary matters hearing. As at the date of the Interim Judgment, parties had been married for about 8½ years.

On 22 December 2017, parties attended before me for the ancillary matters hearing. By that time, parties had entered into a by consent order pertaining to the custody, care and control, access and maintenance of [M]. For ease of reference, I set out below the said consent order dated 8 August 2017: “1. Orders Made (By Consent) (a) Parties to have joint custody of the child of the marriage, namely [M] (BC No. [xxx]) (“the child”) with care and control to the [Wife]. (b) The [Husband] to have access as follows: (i) From now until 31 March 2018, weekly access on Saturday from 11.00 am to 8.00 pm. (ii) With effect from 1 April 2018, alternate weekend access from Friday 7.00 pm to Sunday 8.00 pm, commencing on Friday 6 April 2018. (iii) In 2018 and even-numbered years thereafter, from the eve of Chinese New Year (CNY) 7.00 pm to the first day of CNY 7.00 pm. In 2019 and odd-numbered years thereafter, on the eve of CNY from 12.00 pm to 7.00 pm and the second day of CNY from 11.00 am to 8.00 pm. (iv) In 2018 and even-numbered years thereafter, New Year’s Day and Christmas Day from 11.00 am to 8.00 pm. (v) In 2019 and odd-numbered years thereafter, the first half of the June and November/December school holidays. In 2020 and even-numbered years thereafter, the second half of the June and November/December school holidays. In 2019 and thereafter, 3 days during the March and September school holidays. (vi) The [Husband] to fetch and send the child to a location to be agreed by parties. (c) Parties are at liberty to bring the child out of jurisdiction by providing the other party the destination, travel arrangement, itinerary and overseas contact details at least 1 week in advance prior to departure. (d) The [Wife] to give the child’s passport to the [Husband] at least 2 days prior to departure. The [Husband] to return the child’s passport to the [Wife] within 2 days upon return to Singapore. (e) The [Husband] to pay to the [Wife] $800 per month as maintenance for the child. The monthly maintenance is to be paid in 4 instalments of $200 each on every Sunday pf the week. (f) The payment of the maintenance is to be deposited into the [Wife]’s POSB account no. [xxx]. 2. Further Orders Made: (a) Paragraphs 3(b) and 3(c) of the Order of Court dated 12 July 2017 to remain in force until further ordered. (b) Costs reserved to the judge hearing the outstanding ancillary matters.”

The above consent order dated 8 August 2017 makes reference to paragraphs 3(b) and 3(c) of the Order of Court dated 10 July 2017, which is also an order made by the consent of the parties. The said paragraphs are reproduced below: “3. Orders Made (By Consent)

………. b. Pending final orders on ancillary matters of FC/D 5793/2016 with regard to the child’s arrangements, the [Wife] shall hand over the child’s birth certificate and the [Husband] shall hand over the child’s passport to the [Wife]’s solicitors for safekeeping by 12 July 2017. The documents shall not be released to either party without the parties’ consent or court order. c. The [Husband] shall have liberty to inspect the child’s birth certificate and passport at the [Wife]’s solicitors’ office by giving 1 working day notice either by text message or email. The inspection shall be done during the [Wife]’s solicitors office hours, Monday to Friday from 9.00 am to 6.00 pm.

…….”

In light of [3] above, for the ancillary matters hearing, the matters which remained outstanding were: division of the matrimonial assets (including the matrimonial home); maintenance for the Wife; and the release of [M]’s passport and birth certificate, which were in the possession of the Wife’s solicitors.

After considering the evidence and parties’ submissions, I made the following orders on 12 January 2018: The matrimonial home shall be sold within 8 months from the date of this order. The sale proceeds less the Housing Development Board (HDB) outstanding loan and costs and expenses related to the sale shall be divided 32.5% to the Wife and 67.5% to the Husband. Parties shall make the requisite refund to their respective Central Provident Fund (CPF) accounts from their respective shares of the net sale proceeds. In the event that the net sale proceeds are not sufficient for either party to make the requisite refund to their respective CPF accounts, then to facilitate the sale, the sale proceeds shall be apportioned in the following manner: payment of the HDB outstanding loan; refund to parties respective CPF accounts; costs and expenses related to the sale; balance, if any, shall be divided 32.5% to the Wife and 67.5% to the Husband. In such event, the Wife shall be entitled to 32.5% of the difference between the amount refunded to the Husband’s CPF Ordinary Account and the amount refunded to the Wife’s CPF Ordinary Account, which shall be transferred from the Husband’s CPF Ordinary Account to the Wife’s CPF Ordinary Account. In addition to the above, after refund to the Husband’s CPF Ordinary account has been made from the sale of the matrimonial home, the Husband shall transfer a further $16,189.65 from the Husband’s CPF Ordinary account to the Wife’s CPF Ordinary Account. This order is made subject to the Central Provident Fund Act (Chapter 36) (“CPF Act”) and the subsidiary legislation thereunder. The CPF Board shall give effect to the terms of this Order in accordance with the provisions of the CPF Act and the subsidiary legislation made thereunder. For the avoidance of doubt, the rental income shall continue to be retained by Husband. Save as set out above, parties shall retain assets in their respective names. The Husband is to pay maintenance of $900 per month to the Wife for 12 months with effect from 31 January 2018 and thereafter on the last day of each month. Save as set out below, the Order of Court dated 8 August 2017 continues to stand in respect of the child of the marriage. The Wife’s Counsel shall release the child’s passport and the child’s birth certificate to the Wife within 7 days of this order, to be retained by the Wife. No order as to costs on the ancillary matters. Costs of the divorce fixed at $1,500 to be paid by the Husband to the Wife.

Dissatisfied with part of my orders, specifically in respect of the orders listed as (1), (2), (3), (5), (7) and (10) in [6] above, the Wife has filed an appeal against these orders.

I set out below the reasons for my orders.

The matrimonial home

It is undisputed by the parties that the Wife utilised $6,501 from her CPF account and the Husband utilised a total of $292,600 from his CPF account towards the purchase of the matrimonial home which is a 4-room HDB flat.

Out of the $292,600 which was utilised from the Husband’s CPF account, $80,000 constituted CPF housing grant which was disbursed to parties through the Husband’s CPF account and used towards the purchase.

With regard to the $80,000 CPF housing grant, the Wife’s Counsel submits that this sum should be attributed equally to parties ($40,000 to each party) in ascertaining parties’ direct financial contributions towards the matrimonial home. Accordingly, instead of factoring the entire $292,600, only $252,600 ought to be taken into account as direct financial contribution from the Husband’s CPF account. The Wife’s Counsel relies on the case of TEL v TEM [2015] SGFC 99. In TEL v TEM, the wife’s counsel submitted that the CPF housing grant of $40,000 ought to be attributed solely to the wife as the wife, a Singapore citizen, was the one who was eligible for the grant. The husband in that case took the position that the CPF housing grant ought to be attributed equally as the husband had purchased the matrimonial flat jointly with the wife. The District Judge in TEL v TEM agreed with the husband that since the husband had joined the wife to form the family nucleus required to purchase the matrimonial flat, it was only fair for the CPF housing grant of $40,000 to be attributed equally between the parties.

As for the present case, the Husband contends that the Wife should only be attributed $10,000 out of the $80,000 CPF housing grant. In support of this position, the Husband submits that there are four criteria before a CPF housing grant can be obtained, namely that:¹ one of the co-owners must be a citizen; co-owners must be married; parties did not own a private property in the last 30 months before the flat application; total household income is less than $10,000. According to the Husband, the Wife only contributed towards criterion (ii). As there are four criteria, criterion (ii) ought to only attract 1/4 or 25%...