A woman had to bear the hefty price of her lawyer’s oversight after it caused her to miss a court deadline.
She initially had to pay S$188,000 to buy over her ex-husband’s share of their family home as part of divorce proceedings.
However, due to the missed deadline, she now has to pay around S$33,000 more.
According to Channel NewsAsia (CNA), the woman and her ex-husband got married in 2010 and have two daughters.
However, the ex-husband later became unemployed after suffering an injury to his spinal cord.
The judge gave the woman two options in the division of the matrimonial home during divorce proceedings with her ex-husband.
She could choose to:
The woman opted for the former.
Unfortunately, the woman’s case did not contain any order granting care and control of the children to her. This was due to an oversight by her lawyer.
CNA noted that such an order is required by the Housing Development Board (HDB) before it can approve the transfer of interests in a flat between husband and wife.
So, while trying to transfer her ex-husband’s shares on 26 Jun 2022, HDB informed her that they could not approve her transfer request.
A month later on 17 Jul 2022, the woman filed a summons to amend the order with the consent of her ex-husband.
This day was also the deadline for her preferred option of transferring her husband’s share of home ownership to her.
Source: Stacked Homes, for illustration purposes only
The woman then tried to buy over her ex-husband’s shares on 17 Aug 2022, after the amendment of the order was approved on 28 Jul 2022.
However, by then, the court deadline had already been exceeded by a month, which “disentitled her” from the first option.
Since the missed deadline resulted in the first option being lapsed, the ex-husband refused the transfer.
He insisted that the flat be transferred to him at the day’s prevailing market price instead.
The woman then appealed for the judge’s order to be amended to extend the deadline so her ex-husband had to transfer the home to her for S$188,000.
A district judge dismissed her application since the second option to sell the flat was still workable.
He noted that this option was “less desirable” for her since she would have to find a new place to stay with her children.
Source: Property Guru
Justice Choo Han Teck said in a judgement on Wednesday (12 Apr), “The wife is not entitled to buy over the husband’s share in August 2022 based on a valuation done in May 2022.”
He added, “Where a sale of property is concerned, the market conditions of the day are significant”.
Nevertheless, he noted that the deadline for the second option had also passed.
He also acknowledged that while it would be unfair to make the ex-husband transfer his share based on the value from May, the woman still needed a place to stay with her children.
Justice Choo determined that the fairest way to resolve the situation would be to amend the original order to suit the valuation of the home as of the day of the judgement.
He found that the valuation given by the ex-husband, S$582,000, was reasonable.
To buy over her ex-husband’s share, the woman will have to pay 38% of that figure, which amounted to S$221,160.
This is around S$33,000 more than the initial S$188,000 she would’ve had to pay if she did not miss the deadline.
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Featured image adapted from Anatoliy Shostak on Unsplash, for illustration purposes only.
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