Yong Shao Keat v Foo Jock Khim

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Quentin Loh J
• Judgment Date: 18 May 2012
• Neutral Citation: [2012] SGHC 107
• Citation: [2012] SGHC 107
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Published date: 25 May 2012
• Docket Number: Divorce Transfer No 1074 of 2008
• Plaintiff Counsel: George Lim SC and Jinny Tan (Wee, Tay & Lim LLP)
• Defendant Counsel: Ang Gek Peng and Chris Chng (Eastern Law Corporation)
• Subject Matter: Family Law,Matrimonial Assets,Division,Maintenance,Wife,Child
• Hearing Date: 23 August 2011,14 November 2011

Quentin Loh J: Introduction

This is an application for the determination of ancillary matters. I have to decide on the division of matrimonial assets and the issue of maintenance for the defendant and a child who has been accepted as a member of the family.

Background facts

The plaintiff (“the Husband”) and the defendant (“the Wife”) were married on 24 March 1979.¹ They have been living apart since 1996.² They had one child, one Yong Jun, who is currently 30 years of age.³ The Husband also had two other children from another relationship, viz, one Yong Wei and one Yong Li.⁴ They are both currently 23 years old and are financially dependent on the Husband.⁵ Yong Li was accepted as a member of the family.

The Husband applied for and obtained an interim judgment for divorce on 2 July 2008.⁶ The ground for divorce was that the parties had lived apart for a continuous period of at least four years immediately preceding the filing of the writ of divorce.⁷ The interim judgment was made final on 17 March 2010.⁸ The Husband has since remarried. His current wife is one Fan Yu Yan (“Fan”).⁹

Issues

I have to consider the following issues: the division of matrimonial assets; maintenance for the Wife; and maintenance for Yong Li.

Division of matrimonial assets

The Court of Appeal held in NK v NL [2007] 3 SLR(R) 743 (“NK”) that there are two broad approaches to the division of matrimonial assets, viz, the “global assessment methodology” and the “classification methodology (see NK at [31]–[32]). I will adopt the global assessment methodology in the present case. It would be conducive to fairness and justice to adopt this approach to minimise the reshuffling of assets.

I will analyse the issue of the division of matrimonial assets in the following manner: determining and valuing the pool of matrimonial assets; considering the direct contributions of the parties; considering the indirect contributions of the parties; deciding on a just and equitable apportionment of the matrimonial assets and making orders to achieve this most conveniently.

Step 1: Determining and valuing the pool of matrimonial assets The definition of matrimonial assets

Section 112(10) of the Women’s Charter (Cap 353, 2009 Rev Ed) (“the Charter”) provides for the following definition of matrimonial assets: (10) In this section, “matrimonial asset” means — (a) any asset acquired before the marriage by one party or both parties to the marriage — (i) ordinarily used or enjoyed by both parties or one or more of their children while the parties are residing together for shelter or transportation or for household, education, recreational, social or aesthetic purposes; or (ii) which has been substantially improved during the marriage by the other party or by both parties to the marriage; and (b) any other asset of any nature acquired during the marriage by one party or both parties to the marriage,

but does not include any asset (not being a matrimonial home) that has been acquired by one party at any time by gift or inheritance and that has not been substantially improved during the marriage by the other party or by both parties to the marriage.

The operative date for determining the matrimonial assets

As held in a recent Court of Appeal decision (viz, Yeo Chong Lin v Tay Ang Choo Nancy [2011] 2 SLR 1157 (“Nancy Tay”)), there is no single operative date that would be applicable in all cases. On the facts in this case, I reached the conclusion that an appropriate cut-off date was the date of the interim judgment for divorce because the hearing for the determination of ancillary matters took place more than three years after the interim judgment for divorce was obtained. For the same reason, I am of the view that the appropriate date for the determination of the matrimonial assets in the present case is the date of the interim judgment. As I have noted above, interim judgment was obtained on 2 July 2008 (see [3] above). The hearing of the ancillary matters only took place on 14 November 2011.

It should be noted that for assets acquired after this operative date, the funds used to acquire the assets should be restored to the common pool for the purpose of the division of matrimonial assets (see Nancy Tay at [33]). This is necessary in order to prevent spouses from dissipating the common pool after interim judgment has been granted (ibid).

The operative date for valuing the matrimonial assets

Jointly owned assets should be valued at the date of the judgment for ancillary matters. Matrimonial assets that are held in the names of each party, ie, separately owned matrimonial assets, should be valued at the date on which the matrimonial assets were determined. However, it must be noted that these dates are just starting points. They may be departed from in appropriate cases in order to reach a just and equitable division.

Jointly owned assets

The matrimonial home

The parties’ matrimonial home at Block 103 Cashew Road #15-01 Cashew Heights Singapore 679674 (“the Matrimonial Home”) was purchased in 1991.¹⁰ The outstanding mortgage loan on the Matrimonial Home is S$141,501.38 as at 31 December 2009 (this is the most recent figure that the parties have placed before me).¹¹ The Husband’s counsel referred me to recent transactions in 2011 (as reflected in the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s records of caveats lodged against properties in the same condominium) which suggested a valuation of around S$1.3m to S$1.45m.¹² The most recent transaction was in the amount of S$1,388,000.¹³ Deducting the outstanding mortgage loan from that figure, I will adopt a valuation of S$1,246,498.62.

Joint account

The parties have a joint account with the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (“the Joint Account”). The latest available balance in the account (as at 31 May 2010) is S$3,118.02.¹⁴

Assets held in the Husband’s own name

Motor vehicles

As of the date of the interim judgment, the Husband had three vehicles in his name:¹⁵ A “Mercedes Benz 240E” motor vehicle with the registration number SDH 6688L (“the Mercedes Benz 240E Vehicle”); A “Mitsubishi Colt 1.5” motor vehicle with the registration number SDP 6886P (“the Mitsubishi Colt 1.5 Vehicle”); and An “Alfa Romeo 2.0” motor vehicle with the registration number SDP 6006P (“the Alfa Romeo 2.0 Vehicle”).

According to the Husband’s first affidavit of assets and means (which was filed on 8 June 2009), the values of the vehicles and the outstanding loans on the vehicles were as follows:¹⁶

Vehicle	Value	Outstanding loan
The Mercedes Benz 240E Vehicle	S$59,345	S$61,469.40 (as at 3 April 2009)
The Mitsubishi Colt 1.5 Vehicle	S$16,900	S$36,880 (as at 30 June 2008)
The Alfa Romeo 2.0 Vehicle	S$45,001	S$111,030.75 (as at 2 March 2009

The values of the vehicles in the preceding paragraph were based on open market values as obtained from the Land Transport Authority (“LTA”). The Husband later recognised that it was incorrect to have used those figures.¹⁷ He then provided the court with values based on figures obtained from the website www.sgcarmart.com on 31 January 2011. By this time, however, the Husband had sold the Mercedes Benz 240E Vehicle and acquired a “Mercedes Benz 250E” motor vehicle with the same registration number of SDH 6688L (“the Mercedes Benz 250E Vehicle”).¹⁸ Hence, he provided a market value for the Mercedes Benz 250E Vehicle instead of the Mercedes Benz 240E Vehicle. This was an error because, as I explain below, the Mercedes Benz 250E Vehicle is not a matrimonial asset (see [18] below). The market values of the other two vehicles (viz, the Mitsubishi Colt 1.5 Vehicle and the Alfa Romeo 2.0 Vehicle) as at 31 January 2011, together with updated figures for the outstanding loans on those vehicles, is as follows:

Vehicle	Value19	Outstanding loan20
The Mitsubishi Colt 1.5 Vehicle	S$31,000	S$16,406.15 (as at 24 June 2010)
The Alfa Romeo 2.0 Vehicle	S$64,800	S$84,586.13 (as at 30 June 2008)

It would have been ideal if the parties had provided me with the market values and outstanding loans as at the date of the interim judgment. Unfortunately, the parties have not provided me with those figures. I must, however, do the best that I can on the evidence available. I accept the Husband’s valuation of the Mitsubishi Colt 1.5 Vehicle and the Alfa Romeo 2.0 Vehicle. Taking the latest available figures (ie, the figures in the table at [15] above), I value the Mitsubishi Colt 1.5 Vehicle at S$14,593.85. I will disregard the Alfa Romeo 2.0 Vehicle because it has a negative value (see Nancy Tay at [61] where cars bought on hire-purchase were disregarded because they were of negative value).

As for the Mercedes Benz 240E Vehicle, the Husband has only provided me with the open market value of that vehicle from the LTA (see [14] above). However, it is possible to deduce a more accurate value from other evidence on the record. As noted above, the Husband sold the Mercedes Benz 240E Vehicle and acquired the Mercedes Benz 250E Vehicle in January 2010. According to the “order specifications / booking form” for the Mercedes Benz 250E Vehicle (“the Order Form”), another vehicle was traded-in for S$84,000 in the same transaction.²¹ Although the Order Form does not provide the particulars of the vehicle that was traded-in, I gather from the text of the Husband’s third affidavit of assets and means that the vehicle traded-in was the Mercedes Benz 240E Vehicle. In this affidavit, the Husband explained that one of his reasons for selling the Mercedes Benz 240E Vehicle was that he was advised that it was better to sell it because “it could still fetch a better price of [S]$84,000 (in January 2010) before it approached the 6th year by April 2010” [emphasis added].²² I therefore find that the market price of the Mercedes Benz 240E Vehicle was...