UQF v UQG

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Suzanne Chin
• Judgment Date: 16 January 2019
• Neutral Citation: [2019] SGFC 10
• Court: Family Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: Divorce No. 4395 of 2016
• Published date: 24 January 2019
• Year: 2019
• Hearing Date: 24 October 2018,30 August 2018,04 October 2018
• Plaintiff Counsel: Ms Lim Poh Choo (Alex Shankar & Lim)
• Defendant Counsel: Ms Jessie Huen Huimin (Engelin Teh Practice LLC)
• Subject Matter: Ancillary Matters,Division of Assets,Custody,Care and Control,Maintenance of Wife,maintenance for children
• Citation: [2019] SGFC 10

District Judge Suzanne Chin: Introduction

The matter first came before me for hearing on the ancillary matters following the granting of interim judgement for divorce between the Plaintiff wife (“Wife”) and the Defendant husband (“Husband”).

The parties reached agreement that the Wife was to have sole care and control of the 2 children but were not able to come to an agreement on the custody of the 2 children of the marriage as well as the access arrangements. Division of the matrimonial pool as well as the maintenance payable for both the Wife and children were also in dispute. After hearing from the parties, I made various orders involving the children’s issues, the division of the matrimonial pool as well as Wife and children maintenance.

The Wife has appealed against my orders relating to (a) division of matrimonial property; (b) maintenance for the wife and (c) maintenance for the children. The Husband has also filed an appeal but only in relation to my orders on the division of the matrimonial property. I now set forth the reasons for my decision.

Brief Background

This was a marriage that lasted 8 years. Parties have 2 children, a son aged 7 and a daughter aged 8.

The Husband is 38 years old and holds the position of business manager while the Wife is 35 and is currently working as an education officer in a school.

The parties married on xxx 2008 and lived at the Husband’s parents’ home from the start of the marriage. They purchased the matrimonial home in March 2009. Notwithstanding, they continued to live with the Husband’s parents while the matrimonial home was rented out. In December 2010, shortly after the daughter was born, the parties moved into the matrimonial home. The parties’ son was born in February 2011 and the Wife’s mother and father relocated to Singapore from China and lived in the matrimonial home with the parties.

By 2012, the relationship between the parties had deteriorated and following an argument between the Husband and the Wife and her parents, the Husband left the matrimonial home. Parties have been living separately ever since.

On 31 August 2012, the Wife commenced divorce proceedings against the Husband but after negotiations, the divorce proceedings were withdrawn and the parties entered into a Deed of Separation on 8 April 2013. On 8 September 2016, the Wife commenced divorce proceedings based on the Husband’s unreasonable behaviour. The Husband filed a counterclaim relying on the fact that the parties had lived apart for a continuous period of 4 years immediately preceding the filing of the writ. The divorce was eventually granted on the counterclaim on an uncontested basis on 15 December 2016.

Division of Matrimonial Property Matrimonial Assets

The matrimonial pool comprised of the matrimonial flat which was jointly held by the parties as well as various assets held in each of the parties’ names. These included CPF monies, bank account monies and insurance policies. The parties were not in agreement on both the operative date for the determination of the matrimonial pool and the operative date for the valuation of the assets that fell within the pool and I shall deal with each of these in turn.

Operative date for the determination of the matrimonial pool

The Wife wanted the default date of the Interim Judgement to be used as the operative date to determine the assets that fell within the matrimonial pool and asserted that there was no good reason to justify a departure from this position. The Husband on the other hand argued that this was a case where a departure from the default Interim Judgement date should be allowed. He asserted that notwithstanding that the parties had signed a Deed of Separation in April 2013 and in all likelihood in the Plaintiff’s mind, the marriage had broken down, from his perspective, the marriage had not broken down entirely. He had been keen to reconcile with the Wife and had signed the Deed of Separation in an attempt to halt the divorce proceedings which at the time had been initiated by the Wife. Through counsel, he argued that his actions evidenced his attempts at reconciliation until January 2014 when he realised that his efforts were futile and it was at that time that he came to the conclusion that the marriage had truly broken down.

The Court of Appeal in ARY v ARC [2016] 2 SLR 686 set out the principle that in the absence of strong justification, the default position is that the operative date to determine the pool of matrimonial assets should be the date that the interim judgement is granted since the interim judgement “puts an end to the marriage contract and indicates that the parties no longer intend to participate in the joint accumulation of matrimonial assets (AJR v AJS [2010] 4 SLR 617). In the case of Yeo Chong Lin v Tay Ang Choo Nancy [2011] 2 SLR 1157, the Court of Appeal noted as follows: “[39] … The argument that it is wholly unreal to treat assets acquired after the decree nisi as “matrimonial assets”, when the marriage contract has for all practical purposes come to an end and there is no longer any marriage, is not without merit… [40] … Between the date of the decree nisi and the determination of the ancillary matters, there was a lapse of some four long years. The spouse undertaking any new investment should be made to bear consequences of his or her act, provided that he or she restores to the common pool the funds which he/she had used to acquire the new asset…”

Looking at the facts and circumstances of the case, I was of the view that from the date that the Deed was signed, the parties had formally recorded their decision to go their separate ways. So it would seem that that was the time when the marriage contract had come to an end. In this case however, the evidence did reflect that the Husband had not given up on the marriage and in an attempt to reconcile with the Wife, had continued to make attempts to travel with the Wife and take the family for a staycation. I accepted that this was the position in his mind. It was the Wife’s responses culminating in the events that took place over Chinese New Year 2014 that sealed the position and made clear to the Husband that his attempts were futile. Also, since January 2014, the parties have kept their assets separate. Accordingly, I accepted that in this case, the date for determination of the matrimonial pool should be taken as January 2014, since this was when the marriage had effectively come to an end. Adopting this position meant that the various bank accounts of each of the parties which had been opened after January 2014 would be excluded.

Date of valuation of the Assets in the matrimonial pool

It is trite law that while the default date for valuation of the matrimonial pool should be the date of the ancillary matters hearing, a court has the discretion to depart from this position if there is justification (ARY v ARX [2016] SCGA 13, Yeo Chong Lin v Tay Ang Choo Nancy [2011] 2 SLR 1157). The Wife adopted the position that valuation should be as at the ancillary hearing date for all assets while the Husband contended that date of valuation of the assets other than the joint property should be valued at the date when the marriage had broken down in 2014 since parties had kept all of their assets separate from that time. The Husband conceded that valuation for joint assets should be at the date of the hearing. He however contended that for the rest of the assets, their value should be taken as at January 2014 and supported his contentions with the same account of events that had been advanced in respect of the determination of the operative date to determine the matrimonial pool. Upon consideration of this and for the same reasons as stated above in relation to the operative date for the determination of the matrimonial pool, I came to the conclusion that the date for the valuation of the assets other than the joint property should be the January 2014 when the marriage broke down and when the parties started separating all of their assets and financial affairs.

Having determined the relevant date for valuation of the assets I proceeded to determine the value of the assets. The value of the matrimonial home was not disputed and stood at $378,238. As for all other assets based on the determined operative dates for both the determination of the pool and the valuation of the assets, these were undisputed. Details of the assets and their values are listed in the table below:

	Joint Assets	Value
1.	Matrimonial Home Less loan	$398,000 $19,762 $378,238
	Wife’s Assets	Court
1.	Bank Accounts	$2,077
2.	CPF	$60,347
2.	Insurance	$9,714
Subtotal of Wife’s Assets	$72,139
	Husband’s Assets
1.	Bank accounts (undisputed)	$4,843
2.	CPF	$67,000
3.	Insurance policies	0
Subtotal of Husband’s Assets	$71,843
Total	$522,219

Liabilities

Each party sought to deduct their liabilities against the value of assets held in their own name. For the Wife, these were credit cards and various loans from her friends amounting to a total of $20,303. The Husband claimed liabilities of $93,617 and these also comprised of credit card statements as well as loans. I note that all of the credit card liabilities for both parties were incurred after January 2014 and accordingly taking into consideration my earlier conclusion that the operative date for the determination of the pool was January 2014, I excluded all of these liabilities. With regard to the loans that the Wife claimed should be taken into consideration, she admitted that these had been incurred after January 2014. Accordingly, I also did not include these into the pool. For the Husband’s loans claimed as liabilities to be deducted from his pool of assets, I...