UNE v UNF

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Debbie Ong J
• Judgment Date: 08 August 2018
• Neutral Citation: [2018] SGHCF 12
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Hearing Date: 21 February 2018,27 June 2018
• Docket Number: Divorce (Transferred) No 1855 of 2016
• Plaintiff Counsel: Foo Soon Yien (BR Law Corporation)
• Defendant Counsel: See Chern Yang (Premier Law LLC)
• Subject Matter: Family Law,Matrimonial assets,Division,Ancillary powers of court,Third party claims,Case management
• Published date: 16 August 2018

Debbie Ong J: Background

This case concerns the division of matrimonial assets (“MAs”) in a long marriage stretching over almost 3 decades. The plaintiff shall be referred to as the “Wife” and the defendant shall be referred to as the “Husband”. The parties were married on 16 October 1987. They have two adult children, a 25-year-old daughter and a 22-year-old son. The Wife left the matrimonial home at Toh Crescent (“Toh Crescent property”) in October 2015. She filed a Writ for Divorce on 19 April 2016. The Interim Judgment of Divorce (“IJ”) was granted on 28 June 2016.

Both parties are now retired. The Husband still receives income from his director’s fees, and dividends from stocks and shares. The Wife had stopped working in 2006 and had assumed the role of a homemaker for around the last ten years of the marriage.

I highlighted to the parties that the joint summary of relevant information (“joint summary”) they had jointly submitted is a key document which I would use as a summary of their latest submissions on their respective positions. The latest version of the joint summary was filed on 9 March 2018 by the Husband pursuant to my directions for him to supplement the earlier version with his references to supporting documents. I did not allow any new or further submissions in the revised joint summary. The Wife had indicated in her letter to the court dated 14 March 2018 that the Husband had made some new submissions in the revised joint summary. I considered the revised joint summary along with the points the Wife raised in her letter.

Division of matrimonial assets

As a general position, all assets and liabilities should be identified at the time of the IJ and valued at the time of the ancillary matters (“AM”) hearing. The exception is that balances in bank and CPF accounts are to be taken at the time of the IJ, as the MAs are the moneys and not the bank and CPF accounts themselves. Thus in general, available values as close to the AM hearing date as possible will be used. Nevertheless, in this decision, where the parties have specifically agreed to use a value for the asset or liability as at a different date, I adopt that value as well. The parties have agreed to take the balances in the bank accounts as at 31 March 2017.

Undisputed assets

The parties agreed on the following MAs and their values, set out as follows:

	Asset	Net Value ($)
Joint Names	Net sale proceeds from Hua Guan Crescent property	2,231,634.19
Net sale proceeds from Punggol Crescent property	725,392.16
Pebble property	2,379,117.31
Cairnhill Rise property	2,476,034.42
DBS account -8400	6,588.57
DBS account -3563	12,312.57
Citibank account -0115	1,896.71
Citibank account -0166	7,917.82
Citibank account -3748	8,873.21
Citibank account -2005	335.47
OCBC account	11,434.03
Wife’s Name	POSB account -0033	165,319.10
CPF Gold Savings	5,600.00
DBS Supplementary Retirement Scheme account	153,894.70
Citibank account -0476	1.12
Citibank account -0560	148.57
Central Depository (Pte) Ltd account	161.94
CPF Medisave Account	28,925.03
CPF Special Account	3,675.44
CPF Retirement Account	84,214.93
Husband’s Name	CPF Ordinary Account	111,787.27
CPF Special Account	27,062.52
CPF Medisave Account	47,635.70
CPF Retirement Account	169,794.70
Citibank account -5902	83,068.77
DBS account -2416	3,499.35
DBS account -9146	10,528.61
DBS account -5736	4,340.92
DBS Supplementary Retirement Scheme account	113,567.89
UOB account	477,625.08
HSBC account	17,920.15
Central Depository (Pte) Ltd account	353,112.18
HSBC bond	242,810.00
Shares in Supplementary Retirement Scheme account	47,655.11
Sale proceeds from [X] Country Club membership	16,515.20

There was no dispute that the following MAs have nil value: four of the parties’ DBS accounts (ie, -8402, -8403, -8031 and -3617); one of the Wife’s POSB accounts (ie, -1709); the Wife’s CPF Investment Account; the Wife’s IncomeShield policy; three of the Husband’s Citibank accounts (ie, -7771, -7798 and -2399); and one of the Husband’s DBS accounts (ie, -9147).

In their joint summary, the parties stated the following as agreed “liabilities”:

	Liability	Value ($)
Husband’s Name	Tenancy deposit for Upper Bedok property	10,400.00
Tenancy deposit for Pebble property	10,000.00

I note that these two items are not matrimonial liabilities, insofar as they do not reduce the net value of the pool of MAs. Rather, they are items for which the Husband had to account. Thus I attributed these deposits to the Husband for inclusion in the pool of matrimonial assets.

Assets with disputed values

The parties agreed on the following being MAs but disputed their values:

Assets	Husband’s Net Value ($)	Wife’s Net Value ($)
In Joint Names
Toh Crescent property	3,701,618.55	4,116,873.48
Upper Bedok property	1,799,468.09	1,808,029.71
Loan to Mr [T]	54,800.00	54,800.00 + 12,200.00
In Wife’s Name
Cash sum	3,231,713.47	3,000,000.00
Sale proceeds from shares of [H] Pte Ltd (“[H] shares”)	351,035.56
CPF Ordinary Account	203,598.50	17,862.24
Motor car	76,284	71,156.50
In Husband’s Name
Bank of China account (“BOC account”)	2,400,000.00	200,000.00
Eight NTUC Income policies	0.00
Cash withdrawn from Husband’s UOB account		2,400,000.00

I discuss each category of MAs in turn to determine their values.

Assets in joint names

Toh Crescent property

The following table sets out how the parties reached their respective net values for the Toh Crescent property:

Toh Crescent property	Husband’s Value ($)	Wife’s Value ($)
Gross value	4,320,000.00	4,800,000.00 (3 May 2017)
Outstanding loan	– 618,381.45	– 683,126.52 (10 April 2017)
Net value	3,701,618.55	4,116,873.48

The Toh Crescent property is held by the Husband, the Wife and the Husband’s brother as tenants in common in unequal shares. The Husband’s brother holds a 10% share of the property in his name, and he has stated in his affidavit that he intends to assert his right over 10% of any sale proceeds of this property. The Wife submitted that the parties are also beneficial owners of the 10% share held in the Husband’s brother’s name. Thus, she argued that the entire Toh Crescent property was a matrimonial asset, and included the full gross value of the Toh Crescent property in the joint summary. There was therefore a dispute as to the ownership of the 10% share in the Toh Crescent property.

In UDA v UDB and another [2018] 1 SLR 1015 (“UDA”), the Court of Appeal held that s 112 of the Women’s Charter (Cap 353, 2009 Rev Ed) (“the Charter”) does not confer power upon the court to adjudicate a third party’s claim to an alleged matrimonial asset or make orders against the third party in respect of that asset. It set out the following options in cases where an asset legally owned by a third party is alleged by one or both spouses to belong beneficially to them: 56 If the property is legally owned by the third party, then the following options will be available to the court and the spouses. (a) First, the spouse who claims the property to be a matrimonial asset may obtain legally binding confirmation from the third party that this is so and an undertaking that the third party would respect and enforce any order that the court may make relating to the beneficial interests in the property. (b) If this is contested, either that spouse or the other who is asserting that the property belongs beneficially to the third party would have to start a separate legal action to have the rights in the property finally determined, vis-à-vis the third party, in which case the s 112 proceedings would have to be stayed until the rights are determined. This would be Option 2. (c) The third possibility would be for the spouse to drop his or her claim that the property is a matrimonial asset and allow the s 112 proceedings to continue without it. (d) Alternatively, that spouse may ask the court to determine whether the asset is a matrimonial asset without involving the third party’s participation at all or making an order directly affecting the property. This is Option 1. 57 In respect of [56(d)] above, the family justice court should only take Option 1 if both spouses agree to it, as this course could result in the disputed asset being treated as a matrimonial asset and adjustments being made in the division of other assets to account for its value when in separate proceedings later it may be determined that the third party was both the legal and the beneficial owner of the property and neither spouse had any interest in it at all…

In the present case, the option in [56(a)] of UDA was not available because the Husband’s brother contested the Wife’s assertion. The option in [56(d)] was also not available because the Husband was not agreeable to it. The only viable options were therefore those in [56(b)] and [56(c)] of UDA, ie, either spouse commences a legal action against the Husband’s brother, or the 10% share of the Toh Crescent property is not claimed to be a MA.

In the present case, the Wife had asserted a beneficial interest in the 10% share of the Toh Crescent property which was neither held in her name nor her spouse’s name. Knowing that this is disputed, she is free to commence a separate legal action to have the rights in the property determined vis-à-vis the third...