WOS v WOT [2024] SGHC(A) 11

Outcome: Appeal Allowed in Part, Dismissed in Part

Facts

1          The parties married in June 1999 and began living separately about a decade later. The interim judgment of divorce was granted in March 2019.  The  appeal involved the issue of whether and how the fact and circumstances of the spouses’ separation may be relevant in the division of matrimonial assets upon divorce.

Court's Decision:

2          The default position is that the date of the IJ is the appropriate operative date to determine the pool of matrimonial assets. As a matter of principle, the grant of the IJ puts an end to the marriage contract and indicates that the parties no longer intend to participate in the joint accumulation of matrimonial assets. It follows that any asset acquired before this date would be an asset acquired during the marriage, while any asset acquired after the IJ falls outside the definition of s 112(10) of the Women’s Charter.: at [20].

3          The use of the three “indicia” (that there is “no longer any matrimonial home, no consortium vitae and no right on either side to conjugal rights” was not a general test for the appropriate operative date. To adopt such a general test would severely dilute the principle that the date of the IJ is the starting point that may be departed from only for cogent reasons. This criteria would almost always be satisfied in the many cases where divorce is granted on proof that parties had lived apart for more than three years.: at [23]. 

4          Conducting a forensic exercise into what parties truly intended and how they behaved to determine if they intended to end their marriage for the purposes of determining the operative date will involve a court of law examining an intimate marriage relationship and employing artificial distinctions. It would generally be artificial to determine if a party’s particular acts of caregiving and maintenance during marriage are carried out in the party’s role only as a parent or as a spouse as well. On the contrary, the use of the IJ date is certain and unequivocal.: at [25] .and [29].

5          The operative date for the identification of matrimonial assets also serves as the cut-off date for the assessment of the parties’ direct and indirect contributions to the marriage in the division exercise. Any caregiving of the children made after the IJ date will not be taken into account as indirect contributions to the marriage, as it is rendered only qua parent.: at [34].

6          In single-income marriages, the court considers the division trends in case precedents with a similar factual matrix including, importantly, the length of the marriage and the contributions of the parties. When the court considers the parties’ contributions, the fact of separation and the circumstances surrounding it will be relevant.: at [36].

7          The TNL dicta ensures that matrimonial assets are preserved in the matrimonial pool for division between the spouses. While the legal work may have been done and the liability to pay legal fees may have arisen in the period when divorce was imminent, they were part of the different stages of a legal action commenced long before divorce proceedings began. The TNL dicta thus did not apply in respect of the legal fees in question.: at [52] to [53].

8         While separation will not by itself warrant a departure from the IJ date as the operative date for identification of matrimonial assets, the circumstances of separation are relevant to determining the parties’ respective contributions to the marriage, and ultimately to determining the proportions of division.: at [58].

9          The extent of the spouses’ indirect contributions to the marriage will generally be reduced after separation. The extent of these post-separation contributions will vary from case to case and must be properly assessed on the facts of each case.: at [61].

The full text of the decision can be found here.

This summary is provided to assist the public to have a better understanding of the Court’s judgment. It is not intended to be a substitute for the reasons of the Court. All numbers in bold font and square brackets refer to the corresponding paragraph numbers in the Court’s judgment.