How Much Could A Divorce Cost in Singapore?

With 14.4% of resident marriages being dissolved before their 10th-year anniversary, it is not unreasonable to rationally think what might happen if the unthinkable happens. Perhaps due to human nature or superstition, we tend to avoid entertaining thoughts of the worse cases happening, but that’s also the reason why many divorces lead to financial ruin of one or both parties.

By understanding the legal and moral obligations in a divorce, you would be able to avoid some needless financial hardship and allow both parties to move on to a new chapter in their lives.

Legal Costs

One of the biggest concerns in going ahead with a divorce are the legal fees. There is a possibility of going through the divorce proceedings without a lawyer but the complexity involved may cause you to hire a lawyer anyway.

The type of fees can be categorised as:

1) Professional charges: lawyer fees for their legal expertise and representation

2) Disbursements: filing fees for your divorce papers, court fees, commissioning fees, etc.

An Uncontested Divorce

An uncontested divorce occurs when a couple has come to an agreement on all issues relevant to their marriage and its dissolution. Ancillary matters such as child custody and the division of assets are expected to be resolved as well.

Some law firms offer a fixed package for uncontested divorces that includes the costs of the lawyer’s advice and the paperwork that needs to be filed.

This generally includes:

• Drafting and filing of the divorce papers
• Court Fees
• Bankruptcy searches
• Commissioner for Oaths
• Photocopying, postage and other miscellaneous items
• Interim Judgement
• Final Judgement

If you were not to pay the fixed package, you would have to incur the individual cost of filing these papers:

Table 1: Breakdown of filing fees

However, there are also different combination of services included in these packages.

Examples:

• Without any children, property or maintenance involved.
• With children, HDB and maintenance involved.
• With children, private property, CPF and maintenance involved.
• Whether the parties have substantial assets, business interests, or international elements.

These combinations are not exhaustive and the costs would obviously differ.

Alternatively, you could engage a lawyer on an hourly basis but a fixed package is often more cost-effective and helps avoid any unexpected bill shock.

Typically, an uncontested divorce takes around 4 to 6 months to conclude. This includes an interim judgment, which is issued about 4 weeks from filling and the final judgment granted approximately 3 months after the interim judgement.

Damage: $600-$3,500

A Contested Divorce

A contested divorce happens when your spouse does not agree to your terms involved in the divorce proceedings such as who gets custody of the children.

Unlike an uncontested divorce, there are no fixed packages because the amount of work and the length of the proceedings depend on the complexity of the matter and the number of contested issues.

For such a divorce, you would be paying your lawyer per hour. These fees can typically range from $300 to $1,000 per hour depending on the experience and reputation of the lawyer.

As a rough estimate, contested divorce cases involving disputes over matters such as maintenance fees, child custody or division of assets can cost between$3,000 to $30,000.

Typically, a contested divorce could take over 12 months to conclude.

Damage: $3,000-$30,000

Division of Assets

The division of matrimonial assets can be done by the court under the Section 112(10) of the Women’s Charter based on the following:

1.   Assets acquired by one or both parties during the marriage
2.   Assets used by one or both parties or their children for various purposes
3.   Assets acquired before the marriage but substantially improved in quality during the marriage

Assets which are excluded from the definition of matrimonial assets are:

1.   Assets received as gifts or inheritance
2.   Gifts or inheritance that has not been substantially improved during the marriage

Having said this, it is also not true that assets would indefinitely be divided equally between both parties. The court would adopt a structured approach when dividing the matrimonial assets.

This is done by taking into account the contribution of direct and indirect contributions of both parties before averaging out the ratio to derive each party’s overall contribution. The court may also make further adjustments to this average ratio at their own discretion.

The table below shows an example of this structured approach in the division of matrimonial assets:

In addition to considering the percentage of contributions that each party makes, the court would take into account other factors such as if there have been any dishonest declarations of matrimonial assets, the length of the marriage and career sacrifices for single-income marriages. Therefore, the court would probably allocate a higher amount of assets to the other party.

For simplicity’s sake, let us assume that the total amount of matrimonial assets adds up to $100,000. Therefore, the husband would get $60,000 and the wife would get $40,000.

Read also: What happens to your HDB flat after your divorce?

Children and spousal maintenance fees

Children

The next major concerns are children and spousal maintenance fees. Under the law, a child must be maintained until he/she reaches 21 years old or longer, if the child is mentally or physically disabled or is currently pursuing tertiary education.

There are numerous factors affecting the decision of how much maintenance should be contributed to the child such as the parent’s financial capabilities, the kind of environment the child was brought up in, the education of the child etc.

For simplicity’s sake, let us assume the wife would get custody of the child.

Spousal

Like the maintenance fees of children, spousal maintenance for the ex-wife depends on many factors as well.

One of them includes the length of the marriage where the longer the marriage, the higher the maintenance fees can go. For ‘short marriages” that lasted for 6 years or less, there is a possibility that no maintenance fees will be paid or a lump sum can be paid.

This calculation becomes more complex with marriages that lasted longer. The court would calculate a ‘multiplier’ and multiplicand in their mathematical calculations to determine the maintenance fees. The ‘multiplier’ represents the number of years that the husband should be paying the maintenance fees and the multiplicand represents the monthly expenses needed to be paid to the wife.

Let’s use an example.

Assuming in our case that:

• The husband is 60 years old
• The wife is 55 years old
• Married for 25 years

Step 1: Calculation of the multiplier

Multiplier = [(Average life expectancy of a Singaporean woman + Retirement age of Singaporean male) / 2] – Wife’s present age
Multiplier = [( 85 + 65 ) / 2 ] – 55 = 20

Step 2: Decision of the multiplicand

This is at the discretion of the court to decide and depends on certain factors:

• Wife’s financial needs
• Ability to be re-employed and support her pre-marriage lifestyle
• Husband’s financial ability to pay the maintenance fees
• Wife’s portion of matrimonial assets

For simplicity’s sake, let us assume the court decides that the multiplicand should be $500 per month.

Step 3: Calculation of lump sum maintenance fee

Lump sum maintenance fee = Multiplicand x 12 months x Multiplier = $500 x 12 x 20 = $120,000

Conclusion

From the calculations of the above costs incurred during a divorce, it is evidently clear that it is the difference between an uncontested and a contested divorce that influences the total costs of your divorce proceedings. The difference can be as huge as $18,000! Therefore, out of court discussions are important in ensuring that additionally costs are not incurred when they could have been used on something more useful such as letting it go to supporting the children.