Man jailed for six months for forging marriage certificate from his girlfriend to obtain rental flat

SINGAPORE: In an attempt to continue renting his unit, a man was reported to have stolen his girlfriend’s marriage certificate with her ex-husband and altered the contents to make it theirs. With this, he pleaded guilty to one count of forging documents with intent to deceive, and was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment. 

As reported by Shin Min Daily News, case details revealed that the 37-year-old suspect lived with his ex-wife before they got divorced. Since his ex-wife moved out and was removed from the tenant list, the Housing Development Board (HDB) notified him that if he wished to continue renting the unit, he must prove that he is married. If not, he would need to apply for joint housing with a roommate.

To keep his home, the suspect applied his girlfriend and her daughter as co-residents, and claimed that he had married his girlfriend. However, he was unable to provide a marriage certificate as proof. 

Later on, the suspect secretly found her girlfriend’s digital marriage certificate with her ex-husband, and forwarded it to him. Out of desperation, he fabricated the groom’s name, ID number, and wedding date in the certificate, and submitted it to the HDB. 

The suspect managed to conceal his crime for nearly a year, until his girlfriend applied for a rental flat back in October 2024 as a divorcee.  Further investigations revealed that the marriage certificate that was submitted by the suspect was almost similar to the one submitted by his girlfriend. Moreover, the fabricated certificate stated that they married in May 2023, but the girlfriend had not yet officially divorced her ex-husband at that time. 

With this, he was charged in court for forgery and faced imprisonment as his punishment. 

In other news, there was a report where an Indonesian domestic helper was sentenced to jail after stealing more than S$56,000 from her 82-year-old employer over eight months.

The suspect secretly memorised the ATM card PIN of the victim while assisting her as she withdrew money. The helper, addicted to online gambling, had the idea of stealing funds for her addiction.

Read more about the news story here.