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helping my mum get out of her extremely abusive marriage
Generalhi everyone, my mum is in a pretty dire situation and i'll explain most of what i can in this post. not looking for personal opinion against us, just actionable advice or solace.
my mum is looking to get a divorce and get at least 50% of the assets (basically just proceeds from the hdb flat) if possible. however the problem is that she probably doesn't have enough funds to get a contested divorce (assuming a 30k budget). we are aware of pro-bono services, so will be looking into that but also posting here to get some more suggestions that we might otherwise not know about.
one caveat is that we are all singapore PR. i know very well how this sub feels about PRs, but i'll preface this by saying we're malaysian and my parents came here in their early 20s looking for a better life. my mum has always been a housewife and thus not working. she has been the one to raise me (only child) and take care of everything in the house. we do not have family here who are willing to do so in place of my mum and so there was no way for my mum to have a job. my dad does not cook, clean, wash dishes, do laundry, or do anything. he contributes monetarily and my mum contributes effort in raising a kid along with all household chores.
the flat that they have is under SERS and we haven't moved into the new flat yet, making this yet another caveat. my dad has ceased paying the mortgage and has so far accrued penalty fees of about $12k. he has been giving money to his mainland chinese mistress and is very brazen about it. i'm also aware that infidelity will not be considered a factor in family court, it's purely about how much you've contributed to the marriage. however he's neglecting his duties as a family man in order to give money to a mistress. we do not have a loan for the incoming flat and the outstanding mortgage + penalties are already more than the profit we would've gotten from the enbloc. we have no property or asset in malaysia and our whole lives are in singapore, so there's nowhere to "go back" to.
as for me, i'm working part time and transitioning into full time very soon. i'll be getting my own bto with my husband but will contribute as much as i can for my mum. however i will not be able to afford the lawyer fees with my starting salary.
i just have two questions:
- is there such a thing where my mum engages a lawyer for a contested divorce, and will only have to pay the lawyer fees at the end of the proceeding?
- will i be able to get a home loan in malaysia under my mum and my name, while having a bto under mop in sg? note that the malaysian property will only be under my mum's name and my name will not be included in it.
