Unemployed man in divorce case granted assets to get out of bankruptcy

SINGAPORE — In an unusual divorce case, the High Court has ordered an unemployed man’s proceeds from the sale of the matrimonial home to be used to get him out of bankruptcy, in order to achieve a just and equitable division of matrimonial assets.

Ordinarily, the wife — who initiated divorce proceedings after discovering her husband was homosexual and promiscuous — would have had to annul the husband’s bankruptcy by either showing he was not insolvent or by paying off his debts, if she wanted more assets to be available for division. This is because the Official Assignee takes control of a bankrupt’s assets, save for items such as Housing and Development Board property and Central Provident Fund money.

Bankruptcy laws also prioritise the rights of creditors over the rights of the bankrupt’s spouse on some occasions.

The assets in this case include sale proceeds of nearly S$300,000 from their Sembawang matrimonial home and a landed property in Serangoon valued at S$1 million.

As the husband’s bankruptcy debt of about S$123,000 was very close to the value of the 40 per cent of matrimonial-home sale proceeds that the High Court judge Vinodh Coomaraswamy ruled he was entitled to, the judge ordered the proceeds — held by a law firm — to be used to annul his bankruptcy.

This would enable the wife, 49, to get her 60 per cent of the matrimonial assets, and about S$328,000 in lump-sum maintenance for their triplets aged 11.

It is not ordinarily appropriate for a judge hearing division of matrimonial assets to make orders that would affect the rights of creditors, noted Justice Coomaraswamy in his judgment made public yesterday (July 29). “But where the share of the matrimonial assets which a court exercising matrimonial jurisdiction has determined it is just and equitable for the bankrupt spouse to receive suffices to repay all of his creditors in full, as in the present case, the creditors’ interests recede from view,” he wrote.

The judge had some scathing words for the man, 48, who is appealing the decision. The man’s account of events was at times so inconsistent that “I am driven to the conclusion that the husband is either a self-deluded fantasist or an unabashed liar”, Justice Coomaraswamy said.

The couple, who married in 1996, ran businesses and he displayed foul temper against her and the triplets throughout the marriage. After she discovered in 2009 he was homosexual and promiscuous, the couple went for counselling, where he revealed at the first session that he was HIV positive.

After she moved out of their house with the children in January 2010, he stopped providing for them. He also tried to forcefully remove her when she went to their workplace, resulting in a personal protection order against him. The man was also jailed in 2013 for drug offences.

The judge said the man’s sexual orientation was not a reason in itself, when ruling on custody of the children and the parties’ indirect contributions to the family. But evidence showed he led a “particularly dissolute and reckless lifestyle”, soliciting short-term sexual trysts with other men on a social media platform, and lying about being HIV-positive, for instance.

His profile on the website contained “lurid terms” and showed him clad only in underwear.

In denying him joint custody of the children, the judge said this was because he has displayed “appallingly poor decision-making ability” in the recent past.

The man was granted supervised access of two hours a week to the children, as he did not act in their best interests when unsupervised.