How much can a wife expect to receive when her marriage breaks down?

Typically, a divorced tai-tai will claim monthly maintenance between $15,000 to $30,000 from their high net-worth husbands, according to a Straits Times report.

Middle-class divorcees generally do not claim more than $10,000.

A maintenance order may be made before, during and after divorce proceedings, where the Court may either order the husband to give a monthly allowance, or a lump sum payment as maintenance.

The court will typically consider the following circumstances when making the Order:
- The family's financial needs
- The wife's earning capacity and other financial resources
- The wife's physical or mental disability, and
- The standard of living enjoyed by the family before the husband neglected or refused to provide maintenance
(Above information sourced from You & The Law 3)

What expenses can an ex-spouse's monthly maintenance be used to cover?

These can include:

- Maintenance of property,

- Groceries,

- Domestic help,

- Personal grooming

- Shopping,

- Holidays

- Meals

For tai-tais, their big-ticket items could be

- First class air tickets costing $20,000 and more

- Holidays that can include trips to Europe,

- Stays in luxury hotels

- Regular shopping sprees at high-end boutiques that can come up to $5,000 or more each month

- Rental and loan payments on their homes

- Beauty treatments such as manicures and pedicures

- Visits to hair salons, all of which can cost up to $3,000

- Fine dining at restaurants every month which may set them back about $3,000

- Monthly maintenance covers the ex-wife's personal spending and is separate from maintenance of the couple's children from the marriage.

It also does not cover insurance and maintenance  parents.

The following information has been sourced from You & The Law 3:

Division of Matrimonial Assets
The Court can order a division of assets or a sale of assets and divide the proceeds which it thinks is just and equitable upon a divorce

Matrimonial assets should be acquired during the marrige, and is used or enjoyed by both parties or one or more children. It can also refer to assets acquired before the marriage but substantially improved by one or both spouses.

Among other things, the Court can also transfer the assets from one spouse to the other, postpone the transfer or sale of the asset until the youngest child reaches independence, grant one spouse the right to live in a matrimonial home to the exclusion of the other, and order one party to pay the other.


Applying for an injunction
If a spouse disposes of properties with the intention of reducing his or her means to pay maintenance, or to deprive the other party of his/her right to the properties, the aggrieved party may apply for a Court injunction to prevent the disposal from taking place or to set aside the disposal within three years that the disposal was made.

The application for an injunction can be made when any matrimonial proceedings are pending, an order is made for the matrimonial assets to be divided, a maintenance order for the wife or child has been granted, and when maintenance is payable.

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