1 This was an application filed by the Applicant Wife (“Wife”) under Section 69 of the Women’s Charter 1961 (“Charter”). In this application, the Wife sought maintenance of S$3,850 for herself and S$4,350 for the child of the marriage. In addition, the Wife sought backdated maintenance between April 2025 and February 2026, which she claimed amounted to S$81,700. She also sought the Respondent Husband (“Husband”)’s payment for the Child’s early intervention treatment.

2 The parties married in February 2024 and have one child who turned two years old this year (“Child”). The Wife is a South Korean national, and the Husband is a Singapore citizen. The parties lived together in Singapore until sometime in March 2025, when the Wife returned to Korea with the Child. The Wife filed this application in July 2025.

3 Under Section 69 of the Charter, the Court may order that a husband pays a monthly sum to his wife or his child if it is proven that he has neglected or refused to provide them with reasonable maintenance. The Court would consider all circumstances of the case, including the financial needs of the parties and the child, as well as the parties’ income and financial resources.

4 While there are currently no divorce proceedings, this appeared to be because the marriage had yet to reach the three-year mark required for the divorce proceedings to be commenced. The parties appeared to be of like mind that divorce is inevitable. As such, the maintenance order sought in this case was, for all intents and purposes, interim in nature.

5 Interim maintenance is designed to tide a spouse over until final orders can be made in a divorce and is thus assessed on a necessary as well as a practical basis, with a full investigation of the parties’ financial positions better left for divorce proceedings. As such, interim awards are generally calculated on a conservative basis and are typically modest, aiming to address the immediate financial needs and the household and living expenses of the spouse and child (see AXM v AXO [2014] SGCA 13 at [16] and VVQ v VVR [2021] SGFC 97 at [21]). The Court adopts a broad-brush approach in assessing what these immediate needs are (WGD v WGC [2022] SGFC 69 at [30]).

6 The Court adopts a “budget” approach in quantifying maintenance. In doing so, the Court will not be overly prescriptive in how the budgeted monies are specifically applied toward the expenses. Rather, any fixed maintenance amount awarded will serve as a baseline financial framework based on broad categories of a child’s estimated needs. How best to provide for a child within this framework is ultimately a parenting decision (see WBU v WBT [2023] SGHCF 3 at [10] and [11]).

7 First, I considered what the Wife’s and the Child’s reasonable expenses were.

8 The Wife claimed that her monthly expenses, including a half share of her household expenses, amount to S$3,868.50 per month, which she rounded off to S$3,850 per month. The Wife claimed that the Child’s expenses, including the other half share of their household expenses, amount to S$4,364.50, which she rounded off to S$4,350 per month. While the Wife and the Child have been living in Korea, it was agreed that for the purposes of assessing their reasonable expenses, their expenses should be pegged to the standard of living in Singapore. A breakdown of the Wife’s position on their expenses is as follows (there was no dispute as to the currency exchange rate adopted by the Wife):

A. Household expenses

B. Wife’s expenses

C. Child’s expenses

9 Based on the Wife’s list of expenses and the evidence provided by her, I found that the Wife’s reasonable expenses amount to no more than S$2,000 per month. To briefly explain:

(a) I found that it would be reasonable for the Wife to find somewhere to rent in Korea, separate from her parents. The Wife is an adult with her own Child and is not required to live with her parents. I noted that when parties were living together in Singapore, the parties similarly rented an apartment and did not live with the Husband’s mother.

(b) While the Husband’s counsel suggested that the Wife could return to live with the Husband at his mother’s home (where he lived at the time of hearing), there was no evidence that the Husband had actually made any concerted attempts to ask the Wife to return to Singapore to do so, save for a statement that he told the Wife that he was moving back with his mother, and that the Wife could occupy a separate room there. There was nothing else to show that he asked her to move back with him or that he indeed wanted her to return to Singapore. The Husband also never refuted the Wife’s evidence that he had told her to return to Korea with the Child. In fact, a WhatsApp message sent by the Husband to the Wife showed that the Husband had asked Wife not to go back to their rental apartment, and that he would get her a hotel room instead. This suggested a desire for the Wife to live apart from him.

(c) In this context, I found it reasonable for the Wife to remain in Korea and accordingly to find suitable rental accommodation there. As no evidence was provided by either party as to the cost of renting in Korea, and without the benefit of better evidence either way, I assessed that the total sum of S$2,000 would be reasonable to cover both the Wife’s and the Child’s household expenses. In arriving at this amount, I estimated that rental would reasonably cost S$1,800 per month and allocated an additional sum of S$200 for any conservancy fees, utilities, and her internet. For completeness, the Wife’s claims for her cable TV, water purifier, bidet and air purifier expenses and for the maintenance of furniture and household appliances were mostly unsupported by evidence and I do not consider them to be necessary.

(d) I also found that the sum of S$1,000 would be reasonable for the rest of the Wife’s personal expenses. In my assessment, I found Wife’s expenses to be on the high side. For instance:

(i) It would be excessive for the Wife to spend S$283 per month on taxis/private hire vehicles, with no explanation why she cannot take public transport instead.

(ii) Similarly, the documents provided did not convincingly show why such a high amount of S$246 per month would be required for her medical expenses.

(iii) Much of the documents provided in support of her insurance expenses show payments made to ‘Meritz Fire & Marine Insurance Co Ltd’ or ‘Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance Co Ltd’, with only one reference to ‘Hanwha Life Initial Premium’. There were no accompanying documents showing that this ‘Hanwha Life Initial Premium’ belonged to Wife. The evidence was therefore insufficient for me to find that the Wife indeed incurred S$95 per month on insurance premiums.

(iv) I also did not make any provision for Wife’s dry cleaning of clothes, which I did not consider to be a necessity for the present purposes. I also did not make any provision for her travel expenses. At the time of hearing, the Child was living with the Wife in Korea, where her parents resided too. While the Husband lived in Singapore, there was no standing arrangement for her to travel with the Child to Singapore for his access. If such an arrangement materialises, parties could discuss on how the cost of such travel expenses should be borne. For the avoidance of doubt, this is not to say that the Wife should not be allowed to travel, with or without the Child; rather, for the purposes of assessing interim maintenance, such discretionary expenses should be at the Wife’s own expense.

(e) Ultimately, the Wife’s expenses should adjust to her means. Given her limitations, she should be more circumspect about spending over S$500 a month on clothing, shoes and personal grooming (combined), or nearly S$1,000 on food, groceries and dining out (combined). If she requires more, that should motivate her to seek employment as soon as possible to achieve the lifestyle she desires.

10 I found that the Child’s reasonable expenses amount to less than what the Wife had claimed. In my view, the amount of S$2,400, inclusive of the Child’s share of household expenses (assessed to be S$1,000), would sufficiently cover the Child’s reasonable expenses. To briefly elaborate:

(a) This amount included the Child’s school fees at S$508, being the cost of the Child’s daycare fees. If the Husband’s position was that the Wife should return to the workforce, then he cannot begrudge her sending the Child to some form of childcare to free herself to work during the day. Shy of any alternative and more affordable options put forth by the Husband, I accepted that it would be reasonable for the Wife to spend the amount she has claimed (current equivalent of S$508) on the Child’s daycare expenses.

(b) However, I did not make any provision for the Child’s enrichment expenses. There was no evidence presented that the Child had been attending enrichment classes, nor of the cost of such enrichment classes. There may come a time when it may be beneficial for the Child to attend enrichment classes, at which point parties should discuss and agree on how such expenses should be apportioned.

(c) I did not apportion the full sum claimed by the Wife toward some of the Child’s other expenses, such as the Child’s food, taxi/private hire, diapers, clothing/shoes, personal grooming, toiletries, toys/books and supplements. I found the amounts claimed by the Wife to be excessive for a Child who turned two years old this year. The Wife should also consider reducing the amounts spent on the Child’s birthday party to a more manageable amount that is within her means.

(d) For completeness, I did not make any provision for the Child’s travel expenses for the same reason as I declined to provide for the Wife’s. I also did not make any provision for the Child’s insurance premiums. The documents provided did not show that the policy premiums were paid on the Child’s policy, and without any policy documents I was unable to ascertain the nature of the Child’s policy to assess the necessity of this.

(e) I also did not make any provision for the amounts claimed for baby furniture and what the Wife claimed to be essential baby items, since the Child turned two years old this year. However, I appreciate that the Child may require other miscellaneous items as he grows in place of such and factored this into my overall award.

11 I next considered the parties’ income and means.

12 The Wife claimed that she was unemployed. She said that she was unable to work as she had to look after the Child full-time. However, the Child attended daycare. The Wife should be able to find a job, at least while the Child is at daycare. The Wife did not provide any explanation of why she could not do so. She also did not make any attempts at finding employment. I therefore found that she should seek gainful employment and earn her own keep.

13 That being said, I noted that the Wife had not worked since she gave birth to the Child in 2024. While the Wife last earned about an equivalent of about S$1,500 a month, it appeared that this was as a part-time fashion designer. I appreciate that this may not have been a sustainable role, given the industry and the nature of the job. Nevertheless, given the lack of efforts made by the Wife to at least test the waters, I was not persuaded that she would not be able to find a job that would pay her at least S$1,500 per month. As such, on the evidence before me, I determined the Wife’s income earning capacity in the short term to be S$1,500 per month.

14 The Husband claimed that he was unemployed and living off a modest S$400 per month allowance that his mother, who works as a coffee shop assistant, provided him with. He claimed that in the past two years, he worked only as a part-time promoter at a restaurant for a four-month period each year, earning only a gross salary of S$2,500 per month. The Husband also claimed that he had various debts that therefore limited how much he could contribute.

15 On the evidence, I was unable to accept that the Husband had no income, that he was unable to earn a meaningful income, or even that his income should be limited to what he previously earned as a promoter, for the following reasons:

(a) The Husband graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration in December 2024. He has the qualifications to work yet claims to have been unemployed since graduation. While he says that he has been looking for employment, the Husband provided no evidence of this.

(b) The Husband accepted that he has been living a lavish and extravagant lifestyle. One example of this was his decision to rent an apartment between December 2023 and December 2024 at a cost of S$7,500 per month, before moving to another apartment after December 2024 at a monthly rental of S$8,100. The Husband’s May 2025 statement for the POSBkids Account under his name suggested that he had travelled to Japan in May 2025, with multiple transactions apparently made in Japanese Yen between 20 May 2025 and 27 May 2025 totalling in excess of S$10,000. While the Husband claimed that this trip was funded by a friend, there was no evidence to support this position, nor did the Husband point to any transactions showing said friend’s reimbursements of the amounts that the Husband had expended from his own account. The Husband’s lifestyle and spending habits as such was at odds with that of a person who claimed to have been struggling to find employment or to make ends meet.

(c) While the Husband said that his lifestyle was funded by personal loans from friends, there was no evidence provided of these loans apart from a letter from an alleged creditor [A] to the Husband, and an IOU note from the Husband that was acknowledged by an alleged creditor [B]. The letter from [A] was undated and did not provide any details of when this alleged loan of S$40,000 was disbursed. The IOU note indicated that the Husband took an interest-free loan of S$184,000 from [B] in April 2025, which was shortly after the Wife had left for Korea with the Child. However, the Husband’s bank statements for April 2025 did not show any deposits being made into his account that month. The Husband did not provide any loan agreements, nor did he provide any documents showing when these loans were actually received. Neither [A] nor [B] provided any affidavits to affirm these loans, and neither were called to testify as witnesses. The evidence before me suggested that the Husband either did not receive these loans as he claimed, or that he received these sums into another account he did not declare.

(d) Further, on the face of the May 2025 statement, the Husband received deposits into his POSBkids account amounting to S$101,746.23 in that month alone. In response to the Wife’s requests for interrogatories on some of these transactions, the Husband attributed many of the substantial deposits to loans from friends, though these loans were not previously declared, and no further details of these loans were provided. The Husband claimed that he wanted to call eleven creditors as witnesses to testify but said that only four were willing to provide affidavits, and none of them were willing to subject themselves to cross-examination. All in all, I found it hard to believe that the large sums of monies received by the Husband were in fact loans from his friends, or that his lifestyle was funded by loans from friends. Rather, I found it more believable that these were monies that the Husband had earned through some other unidentified source.

(e) The Wife additionally provided excerpts of WhatsApp conversations between the Husband and a friend, which appeared to suggest that the Husband earned, or at least received, substantial amounts of monies. For example, in messages on 7 February 2024, the Husband said that he had “another usdt coming in… 5.1k usdt”. In messages on 18 March 2024, the Husband suggested that he earned “11-12k” the previous week. In messages on 9 April 2024, the Husband was told that “32k is ready to be collected at Bukit Timah” and that payment by cash deposit could be arranged for him. In messages on 22 October 2024, he mentioned receiving “$200k paynow asap”. While the Husband’s source of income was unclear, I noted that these messages contained various cryptocurrency-related references as well other references to the Husband receiving and paying monies into ‘clean’ accounts. I therefore found the Wife’s suggestion that he had at least dabbled in cryptocurrency and received some income in this way to be a credible one.

(f) Despite the various opportunities given to the Husband to furnish financial documents that would be relevant to establishing his income and means, there remained a dearth of such documents and information. As at the time of my decision, the Husband provided only the statements for two bank accounts, namely his DBS Multiplier Account and his POSBkids Account, for April 2025 to August 2025. The Husband did not disclose any other bank accounts or provide any other statements.

(g) Given this state of affairs, at the hearing on 27 February 2026, I gave the Husband liberty to file a supplemental affidavit limited to providing the statements for his CIMB Fastsaver Account No. ending -0458 (from July 2024) and OCBC Account No. ending -5001 (from February 2024), or else to at least state they do not exist (if so) or to explain why he was unable to obtain them (if this was the case). These bank accounts were specifically identified because the Husband had made mention of these accounts in the earlier mentioned WhatsApp messages he had exchanged with his friend, which suggested that he had these accounts to his name. I had informed the Husband’s counsel that I may draw the necessary inferences if the Husband did not file this affidavit, bearing in mind that the affidavit could be as simple as one stating that he did not have the documents, if this was indeed the case. Notwithstanding this, the Husband never filed any affidavit, nor did he provide any further documents.

16 Given the above, I found that the Husband more likely than not earned an income that was substantial enough to fund his lifestyle, without the worry of having to seek full-time employment. While I did not speculate as to the nature of this income, I observed from the WhatsApp exchange with his friend that he may be receiving monies under circumstances where he may wish to avoid scrutiny. For instance, in the context of the Husband’s friend saying that he wanted to avoid monies being transferred into his bank account at that point, the Husband replied “you know till now I haven’t kena yet.. maybe because… I using posbkids bro…they won’t check me bc I’m a kid”. This may be indicative that his use of his POSBkids account was not for legitimate purposes. Further, the Husband referred to his CIMB Fastsaver account as a ‘smurf’ account. I understand that a ‘smurf’ bank account typically refers to a bank account used in a money laundering technique known as ‘smurfing’ to handle illicit monies. Nevertheless, given the limited evidence and submissions available to me on this, I made no definitive finding as to the nature and extent of his income, or as to the actual use of this bank account. I simply concluded that the Husband would, in all likelihood, be able to afford the Wife’s and the Child’s reasonable expenses on his own, if necessary, notwithstanding his stated position on his financial situation.

17 I next considered whether the Husband had neglected to provide reasonable maintenance, bearing in mind my findings of the Wife’s and the Child’s reasonable personal expenses at S$1,000 and S$1,400 respectively (excluding household expenses which have yet to be incurred).

18 In this regard, given that the Husband had ceased all contributions from July 2025, I found that the Husband had indeed neglected to provide reasonable maintenance to the Wife and the Child. Although there was no evidence that the Wife had made any express requests for the specific sums sought prior to her filing this application, I found that the Husband ought to have known that the Wife would reasonably have incurred certain expenses for herself and the Child. This was especially so since the Husband had previously been transferring some monies to her, before ceasing all financial contributions after 26 June 2025. There was no cogent reason offered as to why he did not at least transfer to the Wife the amount which he felt he should have been liable for. In fact, I noted that the Husband had, via a letter from his solicitors, agreed to provide payment of S$800 from 1 November 2025. However, for reasons unknown, this did not materialise and no payment was made to the Wife.

19 Taking the above into account, I found it appropriate to order that the Husband pay to the Wife both spousal and Child maintenance.

20 However, even though I found that the Husband would be able to afford to pay the Wife spousal maintenance for an extended period, this did not absolve the Wife of her responsibility to take care of her own expenses as much as possible, bearing in mind that it had, at the time of my decision, been a year since she left Singapore for Korea. I therefore made orders for tide over spousal maintenance limited to a period of three months, save for some continued contributions toward the Wife’s share of household expenses should she secure rental accommodation. As stated above, the Wife should not shy away from seeking a job and should use this period to ramp up her search for a job. If the Wife chooses not to work or find a job, that is her own decision for which she should expect to bear the cost of. While she may find some difficulties in getting a job in the short-term, I expected she would be able to find a job within three months, even if it is not an ideal one.

21 As the Wife had yet to secure rental accommodation at the time of my decision, I further ordered that the Husband’s contribution to the Wife’s and the Child’s household expenses only begin when the Wife commences any such lease, since these expenses would not be incurred until such time.

22 Since the Husband had not made any financial contributions to the Wife and the Child’s expenses after June 2025, I also ordered that he pay to the Wife backdated maintenance for the Wife and Child from July 2025.

23 My orders were, in summary, as follows:

(a) The Husband shall pay to the Wife a fixed sum of S$1,000 a month as spousal maintenance for a period of three months. This is payable on the 1st day of each month, starting from 1 April 2026.

(b) The Husband shall pay a fixed sum of S$1,400 a month as maintenance for the Child. This is payable on the 1st day of each month, starting from 1 April 2026.

(c) In addition to the above, upon the Wife securing rental accommodation and providing the Husband with a copy of the tenancy agreement or the equivalent, the Husband shall pay for the cost of the Wife’s and the Child’s household expenses by paying a sum of S$2,000 per month, being S$1,000 for Wife and S$1,000 for the Child as their share of the household expenses. This payment shall commence from the month that the Wife commences her lease, with the first payment to be made within seven days of the Wife providing the tenancy agreement and thereafter on the 1st day of each month starting from the next month, i.e. if the Wife commenced her lease anytime in June 2026, the Husband shall pay Wife the sum of S$2,000 within seven days of provision of proof of her lease, and thereafter that same sum on 1 July 2026.

(d) From July 2026, when the Husband’s payment of the Wife’s spousal maintenance ceases, Husband’s contribution toward the Wife’s share of household expenses pursuant to (c) above (if any) shall be reduced to S$500 per month.

(e) The Husband shall pay backdated maintenance of S$21,600. This represents the above amounts of S$2,400 (being S$1,000 for the Wife and S$1,400 for the Child) multiplied by nine months (being the number of months since the commencement of this application in July 2025). This sum of S$21,600 shall be payable in four instalments of S$5,400 each, with the first payment to be made on or before 9 April 2026, the second on or before 9 May 2026, the third on or before 9 June 2026 and the final instalment on or before 9 July 2026.

(f) All the above payments to the Wife shall be made into her designated bank account.

24 For completeness, I did not make any orders relating to the Child’s early intervention treatment, which the Wife had sought. The Wife claimed that this was recommended in the Child’s baby assessment results which were released in November 2025. I did not consider this to be a basic need, such that the Husband should have been aware of its treatment and its cost (see UHA v UHB [2020] 3 SLR 666 at [48]). As at the time of hearing, the Wife did not provide any evidence showing the cost of such treatment, nor did she provide full details of what such treatment would entail. As such, the Husband cannot be said to have been in neglect in his contributions toward these expenses. I urged parties to communicate and reach a landing on how such expenses, if deemed to be in the Child’s best interests, should be borne.

25 I ordered that the Husband shall pay to the Wife costs fixed at S$3,000 (all-in) payable within 14 days.