Elderly woman couldn’t take over late son’s HDB flat due to his sham marriage

A 74-year-old woman could not deal with her late son’s HDB flat for seven years – all because he had entered into a fake marriage with a Vietnamese woman, who vanished soon after.

As the 45-year-old man did not leave a will, his mother, who lives in the flat, had problems getting approval to manage it, because his named spouse would have priority in handling the matter.

But as the wife could not be found, the mother lived in limbo for seven years, because half the property could go to the wife if there were a dispute.

In the end, the mother sought a court order to nullify the marriage. Due to the exceptional circumstances of her case, the High Court granted her request on the grounds of “public policy” so that her son’s wife could not stake a claim to his assets.

Besides this case, there were at least two other court cases involving the estates of men who had entered into fake marriages.

All these marriages happened before Oct 1, 2016. Since that date, families have been able to use a law under the Women’s Charter to nullify sham marriages that are done to gain “an immigration advantage”.

The number of sham marriages dropped from 41 cases in 2024 to just 15 in 2025, as a stiff penalty of up to 10 years in jail awaits those who are caught. Many offenders were nabbed as these “couples” did not live together after the wedding.

Here are the three examples of fake marriages causing grief to the men’s families.

Mother had no say over son’s flat

The abovementioned sham wedding took place in 2013, after the man was promised a lump sum of $3,000 and a monthly payment of $400.

But he soon realised he had been duped when he stopped receiving his monthly payment after his Vietnamese “wife” became unreachable.

Worried, he told his siblings the truth during a family dinner and later took their advice to make a police report.

He stated in the report that he returned from work one day and discovered that his wife was not at home and was unreachable. He claimed that he did not have any photographs of her and did not remember what she was last wearing.

He died four years later in 2017, but the circumstances relating to his death were not disclosed. As he did not leave behind a will, his mother and his “wife” would be entitled to share his flat equally.

In 2022, the mother applied for a court order to declare her late son’s marriage void. She also published a notice of the legal action in a Vietnamese newspaper.

To support her case, she and her three other children filed statements with the court, saying they had never met the “wife”.

None of them had been invited to a wedding, and they could not even find any photographs of the couple. Neither did the family members know who the two witnesses to the marriage were.

The mother added that her late son also lied in his police report because the “wife” never lived with them in the flat.

As a result of the family’s statements, the High Court found that the marriage was a sham and granted the mother’s application to have it declared void in 2025.

Divorcee’s secret marriage

In the second case, the divorcee married a Vietnamese woman in January 2011 but did not tell his family.

He was mired in debt then and lived with his sister in their HDB flat, in which he had a 14 per cent stake.

He died about one year after his marriage. His family became aware that he had a “wife” only when they received a letter from the Insolvency and Public Trustee’s Office informing them that the “wife” would be entitled to a portion of his CPF because he had not made a nomination.

As the family had no information on the “wife”, a notice was published in The Straits Times to notify the potential claimant.

The family later found out from the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority that the “wife” had been deported in 2011 after she was arrested for vice activities.

The divorcee’s adult son subsequently applied to the High Court to have his late father’s marriage declared void.

The court declined his application, noting that he should instead apply to the Family Justice Courts for letters of administration to manage his father’s estate.

The spouse would get priority in such applications, but her failure to file a notice challenging the son’s application would amount to a renunciation of her right.

The son, as the next person entitled to the letters of administration, could then apply to be appointed administrator of his father’s estate.

A will to exclude ‘wife’

There was no need to declare the third sham marriage void because the husband had set his own affairs in order by leaving a will to state that his “wife” would not be entitled to his HDB flat.

Unlike the other two cases involving foreign spouses who vanished, the Chinese national wife in this case lived with the man.

But the man claimed that he had married her out of sympathy so she could stay in Singapore as a “study mama” to care for her daughter.

In his will, which was signed five days after his left foot was amputated owing to diabetic complications, he stated he did not wish to give his three-room HDB flat and other personal properties to his wife.

Instead, he gave the flat to his half-sister.

He told his close friend, who helped him to get the will drawn up, that this sister deserved the flat because she had gone through a hard life and was poorer than him and his siblings.

He died barely two weeks after the will was done. Not surprisingly, his widow, who did not visit him in the hospital, contested the will, claiming this was done under suspicious circumstances without the presence of lawyers or doctors.

As the will was drafted in unequivocal terms that totally denied her of any inheritance, she tried to argue that her late husband did not have the mental capacity to sign it.

The High Court found that the man was not suffering from any kind of mental illness as he was in the hospital due to his diabetic condition. On the day when he signed his will, his daily medical records showed that he was “alert, comfortable, oriented to time, place and person and with stable vital signs”.

While the widow failed in her bid to declare the will void, she did not leave empty-handed as she received about $40,000 from the man’s Central Provident Fund account.

This happened because the man did not make any nominations for his CPF savings, which cannot be distributed according to his will. When there is no nomination, the money in CPF will be distributed according to the intestacy law, which would give his spouse the right to his fund.

Even if the man had made a nomination, his marriage would have rendered the existing nomination void too. What this means is that those who marry later in life should make fresh CPF nominations and wills for their new families.

If there is a lesson from these cases, it is that you should make proper legacy planning if you want to benefit only your chosen beneficiaries, regardless of your marital status.

Source: The Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.

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