VZ v WA

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Sowaran Singh
• Judgment Date: 08 January 2008
• Neutral Citation: [2008] SGDC 5
• Court: District Court (Singapore)
• Published date: 24 April 2008
• Year: 2008
• Plaintiff Counsel: Mary Ong (Mary Ong and Co)
• Defendant Counsel: Alvin Chang (M & A Law Corporation)
• Citation: [2008] SGDC 5

8th January 2008

District Judge Sowaran Singh

Brief Background and Issues

1. The Petitioner (wife/mother) and the Respondent (husband/father) met in a pub in 1992 and after a long courtship, they married in November 1995. Their parents did not object to the marriage. The union produced one child. Unfortunately, the marriage did not last long and the wife filed a divorce petition in January 2006 on the grounds of the husband’s unreasonable behaviour. The Decree Nisi was granted in June 2006 and the ancillaries, having been adjourned to chambers, came up for hearing before the court. The child, a girl is now six and a half years old. The father who is 42 years old is the General Manager of a company whilst the mother who is 34 years old is the Personal Assistant to the Managing Director of another company.

2. It was a reasonably long marriage of slightly of over 10 years and the issues that came up for consideration were as follows:

(a) custody, care and control of the child;

(b) maintenance for the wife and the child;

(c) division of the matrimonial flat (the flat) and a private condominium (the condo). The wife left the matrimonial flat in October 2006 with the child to live with her parents at their home in another part of Singapore. The husband continues to live in the flat, whilst the condo is rented out.

3. Two interim orders had been made regarding the child. DJ Jeffrey Sim made the first on 31 October 2006 on the wife’s application (the first interim order). It was in the following terms:

(a) Interim joint custody of the child is granted to both parties with interim care and control to the mother and liberal access to the father on:

(b) Every Sunday from 8 am to 8 pm with effect from 5 November 2006; and

(c) Two weekdays from 1pm to 7pm to be agreed between the parties. The father to be at liberty to bring the child for the therapy sessions on days to be agreed between the parties;

(d) The father to provide interim monthly maintenance of $1,000 for the child with effect from 7 November 2006 and on the 7^th day of each month subsequently.

(e) No order as to costs

(f) Parties have liberty to apply.

4. Another interim order was made by the court at the request of both parties on the 19 July 2007 (the second interim order) to deal specifically with an outstanding matter regarding the child’s primary school registration exercise that was coming up at the end of July 2007. This order was as follows:

(a) Further to the interim Order of Court dated 31 October 2006 granting joint custody of the child to both parties, the mother shall have the right, if after consulting the father there is no agreement on this issue, to decide which primary school the child should be registered with for the year 2008.

(b) This is without prejudice to the rights of the custodial parent, when a final order is made, to switch the child’s primary school if he/she so determines.

The child issue

5. On the issue of the child, the court examined it with great care and concern. On the 19 July 2007, the court interviewed the child herself in the presence of a senior social worker before calling for a Social Work Report (SWR). This confidential report dated 4 September 2007 was submitted to the court. At the resumed hearing on the 2 November 2007, the court also interviewed both the parents. After taking into account all the foregoing, the court made the following orders on the 2 November 2007:

(1) Both the Petitioner and Respondent to have joint custody of the child. However, if after due discussion and consultation with the Respondent there is a disagreement on any issue, then the Petitioner will decide.

(2) The Petitioner is to have care and control of the child with liberal access to the Respondent as follows.

(a) every Saturday from 4 pm to Sunday 6pm;

(b) alternate public holidays from 9am to 6pm;

(c) one week during the June school holidays and for two weeks during the Nov/Dec school holidays

(3) Parties may vary the above arrangements by mutual agreement and parties have liberty to apply.

6. It was heartening to note that both parents indicated that they supported the above orders and would co-operate fully in the child’s upbringing. In respect of the other outstanding issues concerning the division of the matrimonial assets and maintenance the court delivered its decision on the 10 December 2007.

The Appeal

7. It is in respect of these other orders made on the 10 December 2007, concerning the division of the matrimonial assets and maintenance that the husband on the 21 of December 2007 filed an appeal.

The Maintenance Issue

8. In respect of maintenance for the child, the wife pegged the child’s monthly expenses at a handsome $2,395 as follows:

i	domestic helper’s levy	$200
ii	School fees (at xxx)	$630
iii	Transport to and from school	$100
iv	Milk/diapers	$150
v	Therapy/medical	$350
vi	insurance	$50
vii	vitamins	$25
viii	Enrichment courses	$200
ix	Taxi fares to and fro therapy trips	$60
x	Domestic helper’s salary	$350
xi	Clothing, books, toys, hair accessories etc	$80
xii	Food (breakfast and dinner)	$200
Total		$2,395

9. She therefore sought a monthly sum of $1,676 from the father being 70% of the total sum above. She asserted that the father’s current net salary was $4,443 but in addition he received a sum of $1,250 into his DBS account thereby giving him a monthly take home salary of $5,693.

10. The wife also complained that despite Pre-Discovery disclosure requests, the father had failed to submit his Notice of Income Tax for the years 2004 to 2006. Only Form IR8A for the income for 2005 was exhibited in one of his affidavits. This gave him an annual income of $64,200 that would work out to $5,350 per month.

11. On the other hand, the wife claimed that her take home salary was only $3,126 per month. In her submissions marked as exhibit “A” (at page 26), she then reasons:

“The child’s monthly expenses over the parties total monthly income is:

$2,395/ $5,693 + $3,126 x 100% =27%

Hence,

i) 27% of the father’s income = $1,537 = 64% of child’s expenses and

ii) 27 % of the mother’s income =$844 = 35% of child’s expenses.

The Petitioner submitted that in view of the Respondent’s end of year bonus not being taken into account, the Respondent pays 70% of the child’s monthly expenses which is $2,395 x 70% = $1,676 and the Petitioner pays $2,395 x 30% = $718.”

12. This was a rather convoluted submission. The Petitioner also asked for a sum of $150 as monthly maintenance for herself in view of her own expenses (detailed in her 3^rd affidavit).

13. As for the husband, he did not offer any maintenance to the wife as he claimed that “she has her own means”. Alternatively, if the court were minded to grant maintenance, he submitted that the court makes “a lump sum payment . . . so that parties may have a clean break”. However, no sum was suggested to assist the court.

14. As for maintenance for the child, the husband submitted (see his written submission exhibit “D” at paragraphs 22 – 24) that her expenses ought to be much lower as follows:

i	Milk/diapers	$150
ii	School fees	$70
iii	Bus fare (Transport)	$100
iv	Books/toys/miscellaneous expenses for outings etc.	$200
v	Insurance policy	$50.30
vi	Medical/therapy expenses	$300
Total		$1,045.30

15. Once the child started school in the year 2008, he submitted that her expenses should be even lower in view of a reduction of school fees. Given the respective incomes of the parties, the husband was of the view that he ought to bear only half of the child’s expenses, which would be a sum of $522.80.

16. In his oral submissions in court on the 12 July 2007 (NE page 7 letter B-D), he suggested that the domestic helper’s salary of $350 and levy of $200 be disregarded as the child was in fulltime day care, but accepted that a lower sum of $250 could be attributed to the child out of the total sum of $550. As for enrichment courses of $200, he also accepted a lower sum of $30-$50. More importantly, he acknowledged that the total expenses for the child currently should be in the region of $1,700 a month and that he ought to bear about $950 of this sum (being about 77%). However, from January 2008, he said that the sum of $1,700 would be reduced by about $600 but he again acknowledged that there may be other expenses. [emphasis added]

17. The husband claimed that his take home salary was only $4,443 whilst that of the wife was $3,266. In support he cited his IR8A forms for the years 2006 as well as for 2007 (which he had attached to the last page of his submissions exhibit “D” (at paragraphs 19). His IR8A for 2007 was revealing – it showed the following facts with regards to his income for the whole of 2006:

(a) his income: $64,200;

(b) bonus: $5,350

(c) Benefits in kind: $1,321

(d) CPF contributions deducted from the above: $11,870.

18. The above would give the husband an annual wage of $59,000 (after adding the bonus and in-kind benefits and deducting the CPF contributions) and which translated into a monthly income of $4,900 and not $4,443 or $4,500 as he submitted orally in court on the 12 July 2007 (NE page 6 letter D).

19. The wife in her submissions (exhibit “F” at paragraph G on pages 12 onwards), took issue with the husband’s position that the child’s school fees be set at $200, and states that having a domestic helper was a lifestyle which the husband had accorded the family and should, therefore, be taken into account. She also took issue with the husband’s expenses. She said that his transport expenses namely car instalments, petrol, insurance, road taxes to the tune of $1,252 were funded by his company and therefore his personal expenses were only $673.85 and not $1,925.85. She set out the other details concerning his income as follows:

i	Net take home salary	$4,443
ii	Personal expenses (Food-$400; Insurance-$216.10; Country Club-$57.75)	$...