When to stop voluntary payments

I have been paying my ex wife child maintenance for 12 years as agreed through a minute of agreement without any issue, always paid on time. The original amount agreed was quite high in respect of my wages at that time, though I was admittedly concerned to keep a roof over her and more importantly my son''s head. We agreed that the payments would increase annually on an index linked basis, however this has not happened and increases were agreed between us amicably when I was able to (i''ve never not paid and never reduced payments). My son finished at school in May and is now at University as of September and I stopped the SO to ex wife after the September payment. Stupidly I didn''t discuss this with her (though obviously should have and meant to) and realised prior to the usual SO date that I hadn''t, so contacted her to explain that I had cancelled the SO but would happily make payment (as was not intention to give no notice). As can be imagined, she was pretty angry and accused me of being an uncaring father etc, that my responsibilites according to our MOA are until our son is 18 (next month). I read the MOA to say that it is in force until he finishes in secondary education and I also believed that on that basis it shouldn''t cease until he started at Uni. My ex wife is now threatening to go to her lawyer to recoup arrears. The arrears she claims, are the difference between what I have paid and what I should have paid, had we index linked the payments all along.

I believe that she has a case if she follows this action, as it is written into our agreement, however, as stated before, this was not enforced at any time and we have until now had a totally amicable relationship and agreement.

Please can anyone provide any advice. I have paid in excess of £45,000 over the last 12 years and reckon that if payments had been properly index linked, would have paid an additional £3,000 At one point when I had taken a better paid job, I did increase my monthly contribution further than the Index Linked increase would have been.

Thanks

Hi Weeman,

Welcome to Wikivorce!

What you''ve done is added your question onto another member''s thread, this means many people will miss it. It''s also what is known in the Forum as ''Hijacking'' a post - this can get some peoples hackles up, though because you''re new, I''m guessing you''re unaware of these things. I''m sure the OP esox11 will understand.

What would give you best exposure to all the members is that you copy your question and paste it in a new thread.

If you need any help in doing this - please let me know

Because a Minute of Agreement is purely a Scottish thing, starting a new thread would mean you have access to the experts in this area.

Take care

WR