Sg men that fail to pay alomony will be black list by Credit Bureau - 21Jun2011

SINGAPORE: Those who fail to pay their alimonies may now be penalised through a black mark on their credit reports.

DP SME Commercial Credit Bureau has been authorised by the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) to keep this blacklist which it hopes will act as a deterrent against further maintenance arrears.

Each year, about 3,400 applications are made to the Family Court to enforce marriage maintenance orders, most of them by single mothers. That has been the average for the last four years, according to figures by MCYS.

Often, multiple trips to the court are required, adding further strain to an already stressful domestic situation. Many eventually give up.

Now, for a fee, they can apply to have the maintenance arrears recorded under their ex-spouse's credit history. This will show up each time a credit check is done by any of its 700 members, which includes licensed moneylenders, banks and retailers.

Applicants will need to produce their court orders, as well as the contact details of their ex-spouse. The bureau may also step in to help manage the debt.

Enforcement is limited as it is up to the companies how this information is treated. But the black mark may compel the defaulter to pay up.

Chen Yew Nah, Managing Director of DP SME Commercial Credit Bureau said: "Having a maintenance order and defaulting on the order, you could even be liable to go to jail. For trading partners, they may want to know if somebody who they're working closely with are defaulting, and if those defaults lead him potentially into further problems with the law."

As Ms Chen notes, sometimes a failure to pay up is due more to forgetfulness and poor money management than wilful neglect. Once the arrears are cleared, both the applicant and ex-spouse may apply to have the record removed. But they will have to prove that the arrears have been fully paid up, and that subsequent payments have been made for three consecutive months.

The move is part of changes to the Women's Charter to improve the compliance rate of marriage spousal and child support.

Others measures which took effect on June 1 include allowing the Family Court to require that alimony be paid directly out of the ex-spouse's salary. The court may also wield a larger suite of sanctions, including possible jail terms for defaulters, and requiring them to perform community service.

The Singapore Council of Women's Organisations (SCWO) welcomed the changes, noting that often, it is the children who suffer when defaults occur.

Laura Hwang, President of SCWO, said: "This puts into real terms how serious it is not to pay, promptly, what has been agreed to at the time of divorce, as ignoring the legal obligation has consequences such as impacting your credit-worthiness."

Women's group AWARE said the move is a step in the right direction, but its Executive Director Corinna Lim said a central collection agency will be more effective.

She said: "Anything else where the woman is the one who has the onus, whether it's going to the court and having to keep repeatedly going, is not going to work.

"You can give the courts hundred ways to enforce this, but if it's always the woman who has to go back to court to get the order, she's just going to give up again."

AWARE said the scheme could encourage those who had given up to try to recover their maintenance debts.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Singapore
• 154thmedia
• women
• charter
• pwn
• men
• divorce
• unfair
• bias
• law
• rules