Singapore court orders woman to repay S$175,000 in loan dispute with mother-in-law

SINGAPORE: A woman has been ordered to repay S$175,689 (US$136,700) in a loan dispute with her mother-in-law, after a judge rejected her claim that a S$200,000 transfer for cryptocurrency trading was a gift rather than a loan.

According to a judgment dated Aug 14 and released on Thursday (Aug 21), the woman received nine loans between 2018 and 2021 amounting to more than S$410,000 from the claimant.

The women's ages were not disclosed in court documents.

The loans were extended during the woman's marriage to the claimant's son. The woman and her husband were undergoing divorce proceedings when the case was heard.

THE LOANS

The nine loans ranged from S$1,500 to S$200,000.

According to the claimant, the loans were taken for several purposes, including the acquisition of a property, assisting the woman with living expenses, investing in commodities, trading in cryptocurrencies and depositing funds into fixed deposit accounts to improve the woman's credit score.

The claimant said that various loans were documented in four IOUs, which were written in Chinese and signed by the woman.

The woman said that the IOUs were signed on the understanding that they were for her mother-in-law's record-keeping of the money transferred, and she believed that there was no legal intention.

In an amended defence filed on Mar 11, the woman admitted to having taken four loans, which totalled S$171,000, but disputed the remaining five. She disagreed with her mother-in-law on their purpose and said that there had been partial repayment.

The woman said that she did not receive the second and fourth loans of S$1,500 and S$2,500, saying that even if she did, they were for household expenses and family necessities.

She accepted the fifth loan of S$9,496 but described it as money for home renovations, not a loan. She also denied taking the sixth loan of S$20,000.

THE CRYPTOCURRENCY LOAN

The seventh and largest loan of S$200,000 was the most contentious. The woman admitted to having received this but insisted it was a gift from the claimant to her son for cryptocurrency trading.

The woman said that as her husband wanted to use the sum for trading, the money was transferred to her OCBC bank account, which was subsequently frozen.

The woman later transferred S$110,000 to her mother-in-law, saying it was out of familial deference rather than any binding obligations.

An IOU signed by the woman on Jan 10, 2021, stated that the sum was loaned to the woman by her mother-in-law and that she would return it after her account was unfrozen. 

COURT'S FINDINGS

Deputy Registrar Jasmin Kang found the woman's claim to be "inherently unbelievable" as the loan of S$200,000 was deposited into her account and not her husband's, with no evidence of it being used for cryptocurrency trading.

The sum was also transferred to the woman's UOB bank account and not the frozen OCBC account. In addition, the IOU was a signed acknowledgement that the sum was a loan and not a gift.

The court ruled that IOUs and repayment conduct can establish binding legal obligations even in family settings.

The woman had claimed that, in addition to the sum of S$157,811 that she had repaid, she had also made a further repayment of S$45,000. During the hearing, the woman accepted that there was no documentary evidence of the repayment, and it was only an assertion set out in the affidavit.

Ms Kang said that if the woman was certain that the specific sum of S$45,000 was repaid towards the S$200,000 owed, there should have been evidence such as bank statements, cash withdrawals and text messages.

The court granted the claimant partial summary judgment for S$175,689 and ordered the woman to pay S$4,500 in legal costs.

Editor's note: Reference to "ex-mother-in-law" in the headline of this article has been amended to "mother-in-law". While the woman and her husband were undergoing divorce proceedings at the time of the hearing, the judgment did not specify whether the proceedings were complete. We apologise for the error.

The names of the woman, the mother-in-law and the son have also been removed due to a court-imposed gag order issued on Nov 10 protecting the identity of the woman's child.