WTU v WTV

Facts

The parties married on 6 September 2003 and have a daughter and twin sons. The husband is managing director of his parents' family business; the wife is an assistant director at a supermarket chain. The wife filed for divorce on 3 September 2021 and interim judgment was granted by consent on 6 April 2022. On 18 December 2023 a District Judge decided the ancillary matters: the wife was to receive a share of the pool largely through 63.66% of the net sale proceeds of a jointly owned rental condominium, each party keeping the other assets in their own name; the husband was to pay 58.5% of the children's assessed expenses of $1,625 each and all their educational expenses; there was no backdated child maintenance and no spousal maintenance; and the wife was to pay the husband $2,500 in costs. The wife appealed against all of these orders in District Court Appeal No 3 of 2024 (HCF/DCA 3/2024).

Issues

1. Whether the District Judge erred in including the wife's bank account formerly held with her late father, her joint accounts with the children, and the husband's shares at their December 2022 value in the pool.
2. Whether the assessment of direct and indirect contributions and the order on the condominium proceeds were wrong.
3. Whether the orders on child maintenance, backdating and spousal maintenance should be disturbed.
4. Whether the costs order against the wife should be set aside.

Holding

The High Court (Family Division) dismissed the wife's appeal in its entirety, upholding all of the District Judge's orders, and said it would hear the parties on costs of the appeal if not agreed.

Reasoning

Following USB v USA and another appeal [2020] 2 SLR 588, the party asserting that an asset is not matrimonial bears the burden of proof. The wife gave no evidence of the account balance when her father died, or of the source of the $140,000, so she had not shown it was inherited. Money in her joint accounts with the children remained under her control and was matrimonial, as held in WXA v WXB [2024] SGHCF 22. She had herself valued the husband's shares at the December 2022 figure below, and assets are generally valued close to the ancillary hearing.

The District Judge had computed direct contributions across all assets; the matching ratio for the condominium was coincidence. The 60% indirect share for the wife was within the defensible range, given the help from the husband's parents and helpers and the husband's proof that he paid family expenses. The 63.66% figure was not an uplift: the judge had worked backwards so that the wife received her overall share of $1,742,434.04, and letting each party keep their own assets was practical given the husband's private company shares.

On maintenance, the wife did not substantiate higher expenses or her figure of $4,000 per child, and the husband already bore all educational costs. His credit card and bank statements contradicted her claim that he had failed to maintain the children. With her income, an inherited HDB flat and her share of the assets, she had the resources for financial preservation, and a gifted car did not oblige him to keep paying its instalments.

On costs, the judge had given reasons; the wife did not explain why costs should not follow the event under the Family Justice Rules 2014, and much work had gone into her disclosure requests that yielded nothing, so JBB v JBA [2015] 5 SLR 153 did not help her.

From the judgment