Why wedding rings and jewellery can still be shared in a divorce

Source: Straits Times
Article Date: 23 Mar 2026
Author: Tan Ooi Boon

Rules involving gifts between spouses may change when the courts hear cases involving matrimonial gifts in the future, because senior judges of Singapore’s highest court have commented that such gifts should perhaps be excluded from marital disputes, as the intention was to benefit the recipient.

Petty husbands can still ask for a share in expensive gifts that were given to their estranged wives in happier times, including wedding rings, for now.

But the courts may soon definitively exclude gifts between spouses from being shared in divorces.

In one case, a Singapore man with assets of more than $40 million still demanded his former wife’s personal items worth $600,000 be counted in the split, even though the valuables accounted for barely 1 per cent of the total assets.

Her bling-blings included a $200,000 Cartier watch, a $180,000 five-carat diamond ring, another diamond ring and earrings set worth $65,000, and a $45,000 Hermes Birkin handbag.

In comparison, the husband owned several properties, including a $23 million bungalow and two Porsche cars at the time.

But rules involving gifts between spouses may change when the courts hear cases involving matrimonial gifts in the future, because senior judges of Singapore’s highest court have commented that such gifts should perhaps be excluded from marital disputes, as the intention was to benefit the recipient.

For now, the following rules will still apply to gifts received by couples.

Assets bought by couples

These include the marital home, cars, insurance policies and cash in bank accounts, even though they may be in the name of one spouse. Gifts that spouses give to each other will fall under this category if the items are bought with their salaries or bonuses. When things go wrong, these assets will be up for splitting.

Premarital assets

Assets owned by one spouse before the marriage will not be shared if the other spouse never made any improvements to them.

For instance, if a spouse already owns a fully paid-up investment property before the marriage and the unit is rented out all along, it is likely that the court will not consider it a matrimonial asset.

Mingled assets

Premarital assets will become matrimonial assets if couples mix them up with their other assets during the marriage.

If the property owned by one spouse is used as the matrimonial home, it is deemed to have been transformed into a family asset.

Similarly, an investment property bought by one spouse before the marriage can still be shared if part of the mortgage payments is paid with income earned during the marriage.

Inheritance

Shares of family-owned businesses are not up for sharing if the spouse who owns them is just a beneficiary and not an employee.

Likewise, inheritance and gifts from friends or relatives that are kept separate from the marriage are not to be split unless the other party has had the chance to transform them into a family asset.

Re-gifting

If you re-gift assets you receive, you will not be able to claim them back, as you did not pay for them. So if a spouse is generous enough to give a house that he inherited from his parents to his wife, he will not be able to get it back following a divorce.

In a recent case, a man transferred some shares from a family business to his wife as a measure to pay less tax, as she was not working at the time. The shares were subsequently transferred back to her husband.

When she later wanted to stake a claim on those shares, it failed because the shares were deemed non-matrimonial assets, and she did not enhance their value as a temporary owner.

The outcome might be different if she had kept the shares for herself because the arrangement was meant to avoid taxes, and it would be hard for the husband to argue that the transfer was a sham.

Finally, in a recent case, a husband gave his then wife a property as a peace offering to induce her to withdraw her divorce petition after she caught him with another woman. In the end, when the couple finally split up, the husband still asked for and was given a share of that same property.

Cases such as this are the reason why the judges’ idea to exclude gifts from marital disputes should be applauded, because the law should not side with petty spouses who do not honour their giving.