'Extremely unreasonable': Judge rejects wife's claims for maintenance and university fee payment by husband

SINGAPORE: A couple in a short-lived marriage signed a prenuptial agreement that they would keep their assets separate and that neither of them would seek any form of maintenance or support from each other in the case of a divorce.

The pair began living separately after just nine months of marriage and divorced about six years after tying the knot, with no children.

In the divorce proceedings in Singapore, the 29-year-old American wife sought maintenance from the Singaporean husband, division of assets including a stake of 69 per cent of the sale proceeds of the matrimonial home in California, and about US$88,740 (S$114,380) for her tuition and university fees.

The man's age was not provided in court documents.

In a judgment made available on Tuesday (Sep 2), District Judge Tan Shin Yi rejected the woman's claims, saying that she had taken "an extremely unreasonable position".

THE CASE

The couple got married in March 2018 in the United States and had no children.

In December 2018, they began living separately, but purchased their matrimonial home in California in September 2019 while living separately.

In June 2023, the wife left the matrimonial home and moved to Japan, where she now lives. The husband still lives in the United States.

On Mar 7, 2018, before they got married, the couple signed a pre-nuptial agreement in the United States. They agreed that assets that they then owned and later acquired would remain their own separate property and not be subject to division in case of a divorce.

They prepared the agreement with their own lawyers who also signed and witnessed it.

Two weeks after they were married, the couple signed another agreement to supplement the terms in the prenup. This agreement stated that if the wife's parents found out about the marriage and stopped paying for her college tuition, the husband would "provide financial support to cover" the wife's college tuition and "reasonable rent" for the remainder of her college studies.

The wife was to provide the husband the billing statement from the college she attended, at the beginning of each semester.

However, when they began divorce proceedings, the woman asked for "a just and equitable" division of both their assets.

She later changed her position and said she wanted only division of their matrimonial home, with the other assets retained in their own names.

The judge noted that the parties had decided to have the divorce proceedings decided in Singapore even though the prenup was signed in the US.

THE APARTMENT

The couple had purchased the apartment in Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles California as joint tenants in September 2019.

The husband valued the property at US$565,231 based on the estimated value of a similar property on three real estate websites, while the wife estimated it to be US$582,960 without any supporting documents.

The judge therefore accepted the husband's valuation.

The couple argued about how much they had paid as payments towards the home, but the husband had documentary evidence for his payments while the wife had none.

The wife claimed that she had paid about US$42,000 for home renovations without explaining or itemising what she had paid for, but the husband said she had spent only about US$18,600.

The husband argued that most of the repairs and renovations due to flood damage in 2020 was paid for by their home insurance.

The judge noted that the wife's tabulations of payments supposedly for renovations consisted of purchases from stores such as The Home Depot, Crate and Barrel and IKEA and included items like wall outlets and strip lights, which are considered indirect contributions.

After considering the evidence, she found that the wife had made 27.3 per cent of the direct contributions to the home in the sum of about US$74,000, while the husband contributed US$197,000 or 72.7 per cent.

For the indirect contributions, the wife submitted that she had contributed at least 70 per cent, while the husband said the marriage was so short that any indirect contributions should be disregarded.

The judge found that although the couple lived separately after only nine months of marriage, they continued to contribute to the expenses of the home and worked together on renovations and repairs for the home.

She therefore accorded 50 per cent to both parties for indirect contributions to the home.

Judge Tan ordered that the house be sold on the open market within one year of the judgment. The sales proceeds after factoring in costs and the outstanding mortgage loan of about US$341,550 are to be divided: 34.1 per cent to the wife and 65.9 per cent to the husband, after factoring in both direct and indirect contributions and paying off the mortgage.

The wife sought an order for the husband to pay her monthly maintenance of US$1,500. She also wanted a sum of about US$88,740 for her tuition or university fees and a sum of about US$40,900 for her legal fees.

The judge said that the overarching principle for awarding an ex-wife maintenance is financial preservation, which requires the wife to be maintained at a standard which is commensurate with the standard of living she enjoyed during the marriage.

However, this must take account the "new realities" that flow from the breakdown of a marriage, said Judge Tan.

She said it is also clear that the ex-wife is not entitled to expect "a full subsidy for her lifestyle" and must "exert reasonable efforts to secure gainful employment and to sustain her pre-breakdown lifestyle".

"Given the express terms of the pre-nup agreement, I found it extremely surprising that the wife maintained her claim for spousal maintenance in the proceedings," said the judge.

Even without the pre-nup, the couple agreed that they had kept their finances separate during the short marriage and the husband did not support the wife financially while they were married.

"By the wife's own admission, after she claimed that her parents stopped supporting her during the marriage, she paid for her own expenses using her credit facilities, savings, stock investments and reselling her luxury bags," said the judge.

She added that the wife, who is 29 and "very young", has a university degree although she claims not to be able to find work since graduating in 2020.

"While she claimed that she is now trying to find a job in marketing, she has not provided any evidence of her efforts to find employment," said Judge Tan.

"The wife herself has conceded that she has been able to support herself financially even without employment, and she has an earning capacity. Based on all the circumstances of the case and the extremely short marriage, I find it appropriate to order no maintenance for the wife."

THE UNIVERSITY FEES

The wife claimed that her parents had discovered the marriage around 2018 and disowned her. She also claimed that she then borrowed US$250,000 from her aunt for her university fees.

The judge said the agreement for the tuition fees was technically not a prenuptial agreement as it was signed shortly after marriage.

There was no evidence to show that the wife's parents had disowned her or cut her off financially. The husband produced messages from 2019 to 2023 showing that the wife had a cordial relationship with her mother and family members.

On seeing the messages, the wife acknowledged that she and her husband had regular communications with her family after the marriage, but claimed that the interactions were out of "courtesy and respect".

Neither the wife's aunt nor parents filed any affidavit to support her claims.

The judge said that the wife did not manage to fulfil the conditions required to enforce the husband's obligation to pay her tuition fees. The wife also did not give him her university billing statement at the start of each semester, which was required in the agreement.

The wife claimed that the husband had promised to pay her legal fees before they commenced divorce proceedings.

The husband did not deny this, but said he had agreed to pay them only if the divorce was uncontested, and that this offer was made at time when they were trying to reach an amicable resolution.

The judge found that there was no binding agreement by the husband to pay the wife's legal fees and asked parties to file their submissions on costs.

"Finally, it is my view that the wife has taken an extremely unreasonable position in the ancillary matters," said the judge.

"This was undoubtedly a short marriage with no children, and parties had also signed a prenuptial agreement prior to the marriage. Yet despite having the benefit of legal advice, the wife chose to renege on the terms of the prenuptial agreement and insisted on her claims."