XUH v XUI

Facts

These are the Family Court's grounds for the ancillary orders in Divorce No 5689 of 2023, heard together with the mother's maintenance application MSS 2707 of 2024. The parties married on 31 May 2004 and have two children, a son aged 14 and a daughter aged 10. Both are 47. The father is a director of business development at a pharmaceutical company; the mother, formerly a senior investment banker, is a non-executive director of a family company in India. The mother filed for divorce on 28 November 2023, but her statement of claim was struck out for failure to file pleadings, and interim judgment was granted on 29 November 2024 on the father's counterclaim.

The proceedings were marked by the mother's repeated absences, failure to comply with directions and an unless order, refusal to give discovery, and personal protection and harassment applications on both sides; a personal protection order was granted to the father in September 2024. The mother, acting in person, sought custody and care and control, spousal maintenance of $10,000 a month or a lump sum, and maintenance for the children. The father sought sole custody, care and control, citing the mother's erratic behaviour. The ancillary matters were heard on 13 August 2025 and the mother appealed against the whole decision.

Issues

1. Whether the father should have sole custody, care and control, and what access the mother should have.
2. How the matrimonial assets should be divided, including whether an adverse inference should be drawn against the mother.
3. What spousal and child maintenance should be ordered.
4. Whether the mother had the mental capacity to conduct the proceedings in person.

Holding

The court ordered sole custody, care and control to the father, with access for the mother every Friday from 5 pm to 8 pm and wider access if a psychiatric assessment at IMH showed she was free of any impairing condition. The matrimonial home was ordered transferred to the father on payment of $646,366.76 to the mother, the father was to pay her $4,058.32 in net rental, spousal maintenance of $1,200.00 a month was ordered for 12 months or until she found work, the father was to maintain the children, and no order was made on costs or on the separate maintenance application.

Reasoning

While joint parenting is generally preferred, the court found this an exceptional case. It had personally witnessed disturbing and offensive conduct by the mother in court and in correspondence, consistent with police reports, family affidavits and audio evidence. Her refusal to file her affidavit, claiming she could not afford to, was contradicted by her club bills, and her refusal to disclose her CPF statement showed flawed decision-making. The father had become the primary caregiver and the children wished to live with him.

The court applied the dual-income approach in ANJ v ANK [2015] SGCA 34, since the mother had worked for much of the marriage. With no evidence from the mother, it accepted the father's figures, giving a direct contribution ratio of 80.2% to 19.8%, and gave her the larger share of indirect contributions at 60:40. Her contumelious breach of discovery, including an undeclared property, justified an uplift of 8% to the father, for a final ratio of 68.1 : 31.9. Because her assets were unknown, the ratio was applied to the home alone, and her club membership was deducted from her share.

Spousal maintenance aimed at a return to self-sufficiency; the mother was highly educated and capable of high earnings, and her demand was disproportionate to the father's income of about $18,000. No child maintenance was ordered from her for now, given her present state.

After she appealed, new counsel raised her capacity. The court explained that capacity to litigate differs from fitness to care for children. Under the Mental Capacity Act an unwise decision is not incapacity, and the mother had followed the proceedings and argued her case coherently, so she had capacity to represent herself.

From the judgment