WLE v WLF

Facts

The wife and husband married on 13 March 1999 and the marriage lasted 22 years. The husband, formerly a managing director in a multinational accounting firm, retired in 2018 and now lectures part-time; the wife works in human resources at a statutory board. They have a son aged 22 and a daughter aged 19, both living with the husband. Interim judgment of divorce was granted on 20 September 2021 in Divorce Transferred No 2112 of 2021. The parties agreed on custody and care and control, leaving the division of matrimonial assets and maintenance for the children to be decided.

The disputes on the asset pool concerned the value of the matrimonial home, a withdrawal of $67,746.74 on 15 March 2019 from the husband's bank account that he said was a failed investment in the IAP Network, and whether the wife's watches and jewellery should be included. The parties also differed on direct and indirect contributions, on the daughter's reasonable expenses and how they should be shared, on maintenance for the adult son, and on whether the wife should share the cost of overseas university education.

Issues

1. Whether the husband's claimed investment of $67,746.74 should be added back to the matrimonial pool.
2. What ratios of direct and indirect contribution should govern the division of the matrimonial assets.
3. What maintenance the wife should pay for the daughter, and whether any order should be made for the adult son.
4. Whether the wife should share the cost of overseas tertiary education.

Holding

The court ordered the matrimonial pool of $5,441,272.66 to be divided at an overall ratio giving the wife $2,353,350.43 and the husband the remainder. It ordered the wife to contribute $900.00 towards the daughter's living expenses, made no maintenance order for the son's daily expenses, and ordered the wife to pay half the costs of local tertiary education whether the children study locally or overseas. No order was made as to costs.

Reasoning

The home was valued at $2,080,000.00, the wife's figure, as it was closer to the hearing date. The husband's account of the investment was not credible: there were no term sheets or correspondence, the only acknowledgment was a bare letter dated three years later, and he took no step to recover the money, so an adverse inference was drawn and the sum added back. The wife's watches and jewellery were excluded as de minimis.

On direct contributions, the parties' attempts to compute payments for the home and joint account were described as an arithmetic exercise in futility, and a broad-brush ratio of 41.5% to the wife was adopted. On indirect contributions, the children's near-identical affidavits were found probably embellished and lacking personal knowledge; the wife's documented involvement in their education and daily needs showed she had discharged her duties, though the husband provided most of the non-financial contributions. A ratio of 45% to the wife was fixed, and both were weighted equally.

The daughter's reasonable expenses were fixed at $2,000.00 after excluding household costs the husband would incur anyway, holidays, tuition and a university admissions consultancy he chose unilaterally. Applying WBU v WBT [2023] SGHCF 3, there is no starting point of equal sharing, and the husband's earning capacity far exceeded the wife's. An order for the son was not necessary under s 69(5) of the Charter as he was over 21. Local tertiary fees were a reasonable expense, and the court would not compel the wife to adopt the husband's choice of an American university.

From the judgment