Judge upholds ruling in $10 million divorce case
HE was the one who forked out the down payment for their properties.
But it was she who had the acumen to buy old houses at choice locations and renovate them, boosting their value.
She also ensured that their children wanted for nothing. She sent them to boarding schools in the UK and funded their business ventures.
So when the marriage broke down, she deserved to get more of their matrimonial assets.
This was what Justice Belinda Ang said last week in upholding a Family Court ruling on the division of a couple's assets following their divorce.
The husband's appeal against the earlier ruling (made last year) was dismissed with costs.
Mr Au Kin Chung, a Hong Kong-based businessman, wanted half the matrimonial assets, but he was only given only 30 per cent. His ex-wife, Madam Ho Kit Joo, a homemaker who lives here, got the rest.
The couple are in their 60s and were married for 32 years before divorcing.
Their marriage soured in 1994 and they became estranged. But Mr Au began divorce proceedings only in March 2003, on the grounds that he and his wife had been separated for more than four years.
There was no issue of custody of their children as they were adults by then.
But there was a bitter battle for the matrimonial assets.
The couple own three prime-district homes here and an apartment in Bayswater, an upper-class London location.
These include a bungalow in Oei Tiong Ham Park, off Holland Road, and a condo unit on Mount Sinai Drive.
Together, they are worth about $7m.
During their marriage, the couple bought and sold at least 10 other properties in London, Singapore, Hong Kong and Canada.
Over 30 years, they amassed a fortune of more than $10 million.
Madam Ho herself is wealthy in her own right, buying a house at Queen Astrid Gardens in Bukit Timah, where she still lives.
She worked as a freelance property agent from 1978 to 1980.
CONTRIBUTION
Mr Au acknowledged her contributions to the family and their fortune.
But he claimed that the properties existed only because he made the down payments. The rest of the payments were made from their combined savings and using bank loans.
He said in his affidavit: 'She of course played a significant role in bringing up the children, investing our money and maintaining our properties, but I started it, I financed it and determined the direction in which the investments should go.
'At a later date it seems she sold some of the properties without my knowledge and made other investments, but it could only have been with our joint assets.'
Madam Ho admitted that she did not share the sales proceeds of some properties with her husband, but said the money had been used for family expenses.
EXAGGERATION
Otherwise, she rejected her ex-husband's claim as an exaggeration, saying she alone had managed the investments.
This was because he had stopped remitting money for the family's expenses in 1991.
She also said it was out of character for MrAu to concern himself with renovating and maintaining the properties.
Justice Ang wrote in her judgment: 'Madam Ho was clearly entitled to at least an equal division of the matrimonial assets even if there were no findings that she used her savings to help acquire the landed properties and that the cash portion of the acquisitions had all come from Mr Au.'
Lawyers told The New Paper that in divorce cases, what each spouse is awarded might not correspond with their respective financial contribution.
One of them, Mr Michael Low, said the court takes a broader view that may not be limited to a calculation of who paid how much.
He said: 'If the marriage lasted less than 10 years, the assets will probably be divided equally between the spouses.
'But in a long marriage, the court will also consider the intangibles, such as the amount of time each spouse spends with their children.
'This is because the spouses would have made sacrifices for the family.'
source:
http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/st...42675,00.html? 
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