You must make a police report and if you are injured seek medical attention and then file a complaint at the Family Court and apply for a personal protection order for yourself and the child. The court will issue an expedited interim Personal Protection Order (PPO) and summon the spouse to attend court to answer the complaint. If the spouse accepts the complaint or if the complaint is proven at a hearing, the PPO will be made permanent.

If there is a real risk that the spouse will hurt you or the child regardless of the PPO you can also apply for an domestic exclusion order, which will require the spouse to leave the matrimonial home and make it an offence for the spouse to return to the matrimonial home without your approval.

You must file a maintenance summons in the Family Court and apply for monthly maintenance for yourself and the child.

The amount payable as maintenance will depend on income you and your spouse earn and the expenses you your spouse incur and the child’s expenses.

No. You must wait for at least 3 years before you can apply for divorce.

If your spouse agrees, both of you can sign a Deed of Separation setting out the terms and conditions under which you will remain separate and apart until you become eligible to file for divorce. Do note that if the Deed of Separation deals with property titles, the Deed must be registered with the Registry of Deeds. Otherwise, you cannot produce the Deed in court as evidence of your interest to title in the property.

If your spouse does not agree to sign a Deed of Separation, you can apply for Judicial Separation from the court. The ground and facts you can rely on to get Judicial Separation will be the same as that for a divorce. In Judicial Separation you can also agree on the division of assets and other matters.

If the marriage has not been consummated due to the incapacity of one party or the willful refusal of one party to consummate it, you can apply for Annulment of the marriage and also have all other ancillary issues dealt with in the suit.

If exceptional hardship is suffered by you or if there is exceptional depravity on the part of spouse, the you may apply for leave to file for divorce before the expiration of 3 years from the date of the marriage.

You can make an application in Singapore, under an international treaty known as the Hague Convention, to which most major countries in the world are signatories, for the return of the child to Singapore. The application must be made within 1 year of the child’s abduction. When the child is returned to Singapore you and your spouse can apply for custody, care and control and access to the child in Singapore.

You must immediately apply to the court for the child to be returned to the matrimonial home. Do note that your spouse would have created facts e.g. by alleging that you had committed family violence against the child and or the spouse to convince the court that the child should not be returned to you or that you should only be allowed supervised access to the child. You must be prepared to fight such assertions with the appropriate evidence.

There is only one ground for divorce i.e. irretrievable breakdown of the marriage. Irretrievable breakdown can be proven by any one of the following facts:

Sometime in 2023 it will be possible for couples who want a divorce but do not wish to make allegations against each other to apply for a divorce by mutual agreement.

No.

You or your spouse must be domiciled or habitually resident in Singapore for at least 3 years and at least 3 years must have passed since your marriage before the filing of the divorce suit.

If you have children below 21 years and if there no agreement between you and your spouse on the custody, care and control and access to the children, if you are the claimant or if you are the defendant who wishes to file a defence and counter claim to the suit, you must attend obtain a Mandatory Parenting Programme at any Family Service Centre and obtain a Completion Certificate before filing for divorce or filing the defence and counterclaim.

If you and your spouse reach an agreement on all aspects of the divorce ie the divorce itself and on ancillary issues such as the custody, care and control and access to minor children, division of matrimonial assets and maintenance for the spouse and the children then you can apply for Simplified Uncontested Divorce.

The divorce may also not be contested if your spouse is missing or is not contactable or if the spouse does not bother to respond to the court documents served on the spouse. You may then be able to set down the matter for a hearing on an uncontested basis and get an interim judgment or proceed to a hearing and obtain interim judgment.

If the spouse fights the claim, the spouse will file a defence to the claim (if the spouse does not want a divorce) or a defence and counterclaim (if the spouse denies your claim but wants a divorce). Parties will then have to attend a mediation to try and settle the dispute. If the mediation is successful, an Interim Judgment can be entered and if not, the matter will proceed to trial where another judge will decide the dispute based on the evidence provided.

Ancillary issues are issues that arise out of divorce such as custody, care and control and access to minor children, division of matrimonial assets and maintenance for the spouse and any child.

If an agreement is reached on the ancillary issues as well by the parties themselves or through mediation by the court, the Interim Judgment will reflect the terms of the agreement.

If there is no agreement, parties will have to deal with the ancillary issues separately at a hearing.

Ancillary issues include the custody, care and control and access to a minor child of the marriage, division of matrimonial assets and maintenance of the spouse and children.

You can enter Final Judgement 3 months after Interim Judgment is given but only if the ancillary issues are decided. If 3 months have expired after Interim Judgment is given, but ancillary issues have not been decided, you must wait for the ancillary issues to be decided before you can apply for Final Judgment.

If the spouses agree on all issues, you should be able to get Final Judgment within 5 months after starting the divorce suit. If not you may have to wait between 6 to 12 months. If ancillary issues are vigorously contested, it can take even longer.

Even if a spouse did not contest the divorce suit, the spouse will be given an opportunity to contest the ancillary issues.

When the divorce is settled, the court will direct parties to file an affidavit of assets and means setting out each party’s case on the ancillary issues.

After the affidavits of assets and means are filed and exchanged, each party will have an automatic right to file an affidavit in reply to the other party’s affidavit of assets and means. Once the affidavits of reply are filed and exchanged, parties will not be allowed further affidavits without getting the court’s leave to do so.

To strengthen its own case or to weaken the other party’s case each party can serve on the other party a request for further and better particulars or interrogatories. If the request is rejected, the requesting party can file an application in court for this purpose and the court will then decide the matter.

You must show the court why it is in the best interest of the child that custody, care and control should be given to you. Usually custody, which concerns major matters such as medical treatment, education etc is not an issue because the court will usually order custody to be joint.

It is care and control ie everyday control of the child that is in issue. You must be able to show in what ways the child will benefit if care and control is given to you.

Sometimes if the court feels that it will be beneficial for the child it may order care and control to be shared ie the child will be with one parent for part of the week and with the other parent for the remainder of the week.

If you agree to give care and control of the child to the other parent or if the court makes an order giving care and control to the other parent or orders shared care and control you will need to apply for access to the child.

If you and your spouse are parting on amicable terms you can agree with your spouse for liberal access to the child which means you can visit the child or take the child out at anytime you wish but with the knowledge and consent of the spouse.

If you and your spouse are parting amicably but not in a friendly manner you may to apply for reasonable access ie access at reasonable times acceptable to your spouse.

If the divorce is not amicable or if you want to specify when and how you may want access to the child you may ask for supervised access where the spouse is present when you see the child or where the dates and times and occasions you get to see the child are specifically spelt out eg overnight weekend and school and public holidays access.

If you are the spouse having care and control of the child you can apply for maintenance for the child.

The maintenance payable for the child will depend on the needs of the child and the financial resources of both parents. The court will determine the proportion each parent must bear in relation to the child’s financial needs.

The court will first determine what the matrimonial assets are. These are assets which each party acquires during the marriage and usually consists of money in the bank, properties acquired by one or both parties, monies in both parties’ CPF accounts, shares, bonds, jewellery lottery winnings, owned by the parties, businesses owned by both parties.

No. You must get the other parent’s consent or seek the court’s approval for the change of name.

They do not unless the other spouse has contributed to the enhancement of the value of the asset in some way or if the property acquired before the marriage was treated as a matrimonial home or if the assets was given to both parties as a matrimonial gift.

First the court will determine what the direct contribution of the parties is as a percentage towards the acquisition of the matrimonial asset.

Next the court will determine what the parties contribution is as a percentage towards the indirect contribution made by the parties in the marriage. Such contributions will include the effort put in taking care of the family, paying for utilities and other amenities.

It will then total up the percentage of direct and indirect contribution made by both party and divide the result by two to arrive at an average for both parties.

If the financial evidence to determine the direct contribution is sketchy and in the determination of parties ‘indirect contributions the courts will adopt a broad brush approach rather than a mechanistic accounting procedure.

Where the marriage is a long one, or if the wife gives up a career to bring up children to adulthood more weight would be given to indirect contribution. Similarly less weight would be given to indirect contribution if the pool of matrimonial assets is large and all of it was acquired by one party or if the parties had the help of a domestic helper.

The court can draw an adverse inference against the spouse if there is some evidence to show that the spouse has the asset and has access to the information that the spouse is hiding.

If the court draws adverse inference against the spouse the court will either add the value of the undisclosed assets (if known) to the matrimonial assets pool or if unknown would order a higher proportion of the disclosed assets to you.

Yes, if you are incapacitated during the marriage and remain unable to maintain yourself.

It would depend on various factors including the amount received in the division of matrimonial assets, age, earning capacity, duration of the marriage etc.

It will only be taken into account if it was extreme and undisputed.

Yes but not more than 3 years arrears.

You cannot get nominal maintenance just because your situation might change for the worse. You must be entitled to maintenance now.

Yes. You can prove the arrears in his bankruptcy or if he dies, claim the arrears as a debt due from his estate.

Yes it can do at its discretion

It is valid until the death or marriage of the party receiving the maintenance or the death of the party giving the maintenance if the maintenance is unsecured.

For a child the maintenance order is valid until the child reaches the age of 21 or pursuing a tertiary education or is serving national service.

You can seek an attachment order in which the spouse’s employer would be ordered to pay a portion of the spouse’s salary to you as maintenance, you could seek an garnishee order in which anyone who owes the spouse money would be ordered to pay the money to you, you could ask the court to order the spouse to provide a banker’s guarantee against default or in the last you could send the spouse to a maximum of one months’ imprisonment for each month of unpaid maintenance.

If the child is above 21, the child must directly apply to enforce the maintenance order.

Yes provided you are able to show a material change in your circumstances.

If your marriage is registered in the Syariah Court or if you and your spouse are both Muslims you can get divorce at the Syariah Court.

You can pronounce talak against your spouse. Talak can be single or triple. Whichever talak you pronounce you must register the divorce at the Syariah Court for the divorce to be legally valid.