Court Declares Elderly Mother’s Son’s Marriage to Vietnamese Woman Invalid After His Death

By
Loh Huey Xin
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A 74-year-old mother has successfully petitioned the Family Justice Court to declare her son’s marriage to a Vietnamese woman invalid, allowing her to manage his estate after his death.

Here’s what happened.

Mother Seeks to Void Son’s Marriage

Madam Kee Cheong Keng, a 74-year-old woman who works as a cleaner, filed a petition with the Family Justice Court after her son died in June 2017 at the age of 45.

Her son owned the HDB flat where she was living. However, she couldn’t process his estate because he had entered a fake marriage with a Vietnamese woman who has disappeared since his death.

According to recent court documents, after her son’s death, Madam Kee reported to police that he had entered into a sham marriage with a Vietnamese national, Ms Dinh Thi Thu Hien.

The court noted that Ms Hien never set foot in the flat owned by the son and never fulfilled her duties as a wife.

The judgment did not disclose the son’s name or the location and type of the HDB flat.

Madam Kee’s son married Ms Hien in May 2013. Madam Kee stated that in September of the same year, her son revealed to his mother and siblings the truth about his fake marriage during a family dinner.

He had the sham marriage with the Vietnamese woman through the arrangements made by “marriage agents” in exchange for an initial payment of $3,000.

Ms Hien also promised to pay him $400 monthly afterwards.

Legal Battle Over Estate Rights

However, after the marriage registration, not only did Ms Hien fail to make the promised monthly payments, she also disappeared.

The son reported to the police in September 2013, falsely claiming that one day he returned home from work to find his “wife” missing and couldn’t contact her afterward.

In reality, Ms Hien had never lived with him. Madam Kee said Ms Hien did not attend her son’s funeral, and her multiple attempts to contact the “wife” were unsuccessful.

In October 2022, Madam Kee filed a court petition seeking to declare her son’s marriage to Ms Hien invalid to prevent her from claiming and managing her son’s estate.

To serve the court documents to Ms Hien, Madam Kee hired a lawyer in Vietnam to locate her and also published notices in a Vietnamese newspaper about the court proceedings, but received no response from Ms Hien.

Judge Choo Han Teck, who heard the case, concluded that this was a sham marriage based on the fact that Madam Kee’s son and Ms Hien never lived together, had no photos together, never held a wedding ceremony, and Madam Kee’s family had never met Ms Hien.

The judge believed the marriage was arranged to help Ms Hien apply for permanent residency or citizenship in Singapore, while Madam Kee’s son, who was unemployed at the time, benefited financially from the arrangement.

The judge also pointed out that more than seven years had passed since Madam Kee’s son’s death, and his “wife” remains missing.

If the court did not rule this a sham marriage, public housing and social welfare benefits provided by the government could potentially be exploited, which would be unfair to the deceased’s family.

Therefore, the judge declared the marriage between Madam Kee’s son and Ms Hien as invalid, preventing the latter from inheriting the estate.

Moving forward, Madam Kee can apply to the court as a family member for letters of administration to handle her son’s estate matters.

Typically, the Family Justice Court redacts the names of parties involved in its cases, but the judge specifically instructed that the names be made public in this judgment.

He explained that this would allow Ms Hien to appeal the court’s decision if she happened to see the judgment.

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Loh Huey Xin