Woman sues husband and his ex-wife for return of $205,000 she gave him

SINGAPORE – A woman had to sue her husband for the return of more than $205,000 she handed him before they tied the knot and while he was married to another woman.

Mr Safie Jantan had asked her for the money to buy his then wife’s share of their flat, and to become sole owner of the unit.

He made the request knowing that Madam Zaiton Adom had come into a large sum of money from the sale of her own flat and a lump sum withdrawal from her Central Provident Fund account.

After he received the money, Mr Safie handed it to Madam Nafsiah Wagiman, who was his wife then, and told her to deposit the funds into her CPF account.

She later used about $126,000 to pay off the Housing Board loan on their flat.

Three years later, in 2018, the couple divorced, ending their 33-year marriage.

The Syariah Court ordered their flat to be sold and awarded 100 per cent of the net proceeds to Madam Nafsiah.

The order did not take Madam Zaiton’s money into account.

This prompted Mr Safie, who did not take active steps during the divorce proceedings to make a case for the sum, to finally act.

Mr Safie and Madam Zaiton, who were married in 2019, tried to get the Syariah Court to change its order, but failed.

In 2020, Madam Zaiton sued both Mr Safie and Madam Nafsiah in the High Court to recover the $205,359.80 that she handed him in 2015.

The three were all HDB employees, and the two women knew each other as colleagues.

A High Court judge declared that Mr Safie was personally liable to pay the sum to Madam Zaiton as restitution for unjust enrichment.

Justice Vinodh Coomaraswamy said in August 2022 that once the money was handed to Mr Safie, he was enriched at Madam Zaiton’s expense; his choice to pass the money to Madam Nafsiah did not negate the enrichment.

The judge said this enrichment was unjust because Mr Safie failed to bring about the intended result for him to become the sole owner of the flat.

Mr Safie and Ms Zaiton, who were represented by different lawyers, appealed.

Last Wednesday, the appellate division of the High Court upheld the earlier decision and dismissed their appeals.

A main contention in their appeals is that it was Madam Nafsiah who has been unjustly enriched.

But the three-judge panel noted that Madam Nafsiah is now entitled to the entire sale proceeds due to a Syariah Court order and that she did not know until later that the money came from Madam Zaiton.

The court, comprising justices Debbie Ong, Aedit Abdullah and Quentin Loh, said it cannot go into the merits of the Syariah Court order nor reopen its decision.

The flat in the centre of the case was bought in 2002 for $298,000. The estimated value in 2022 was between $350,000 and $438,000. 

Madam Nafsiah had serviced the housing loan virtually on her own; Mr Safie contributed just over $23,000 from his CPF account towards the down payment.

[[nid:614393]]

In 2016, Madam Zaiton’s brothers visited the flat in a bid to recover the $205,359.80 from Mr Safie.

Questioned by Madam Nafsiah, Mr Safie revealed that Madam Zaiton was the source of the funds.

He also said that he had entered into an “unregistered marriage” with Madam Zaiton in 2013.

Madam Nafsiah filed for divorce in May 2017.

In April 2018, at the first hearing of the divorce proceedings, she volunteered to the court that she had used money originating from Madam Zaiton to pay off the HDB loan.

The Syariah Court shelved the proceedings to give Madam Zaiton an opportunity to intervene, but Mr Safie failed to tell her about it.

Last Wednesday, the appellate court noted that Madam Zaiton ultimately succeeded in getting an order for the return of the sum.

“Despite this, she may still not be satisfied with the outcome because (Mr Safie) is her husband with whom she ‘shares’ financial gains and losses as part of married life, but that is a separate and different lament,” said the court.

The court added that the situation partly came about because neither Madam Zaiton nor Mr Safie took the opportunity to assert their claims before the conclusion of the divorce proceedings.

Madam Zaiton cannot stake a claim to the flat in divorce proceedings.

But she could have asked the Syariah Court to stay the divorce proceedings to allow the ownership of certain assets to be separately determined first, said the court.

This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.