[1] The appellant/husband petitioner's appeal in respect of distribution of matrimonial assets and/or orders for payment, etc; came up for hearing on30 June 2016 and upon hearing, we reserved judgment and requested parties to submit as to meaning of matrimonial assets within the frame work of s 76 of Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) Act 1976 (LRA 1976). My learned brothers Abdul Rahman bin Sebli JCA and Prasad Sandosham Abraham JCA have read the draft judgment and approved the same.

Preliminaries

[2] At the outset, it must be stated that the related matrimonial legislation in England, Singapore, etc in respect of division of matrimonial assets is not one and the same. The jurisprudence in almost all jurisdiction attempts to make a distinction between matrimonial assets and non-matrimonial assets and assets which were acquired before the marriage. As a general rule, assets which were acquired before the marriage are excluded in most of the jurisdictions in which we often rely as judicial precedent.

[3] Section 76 of LRA 1976 does not define what is matrimonial asset. For purpose of convenience, we propose to classify the matrimonial assets into two parts. One is matrimonial property