unilateral reduction of maintenance

Advice needed please:
Child's father (we cohabited, not married)has been paying maintenance for daughter for 7 years on a verbal agreement made day before High Court Hearing was due!, has been a good payer but has now said has to reduce by 25% and she must leave her (private) school immediately. Not sure of his finances now, just what he says,
Q1. can he unilaterally change things?

Q2. what actions can I take?

Any legal advice/ similar experience feedback welcomed.

Just remember that if his income has decreased he may be no longer have the ability to pay.

If there is no court order/CSA involvement he an do as he pleases. However, you could apply to the CSA for child support (15% of his net income minus deductions for any overnight contact) and the courts for an order to pay school fees. A solicitor would be in the best position to advise about the probability of the latter being successful. Alternatively you can negotiate and come to another agreement between yourselves.

thanks. problem is that he has refused to have contact with me or child and so I just got a letter telling me his decision. i have no idea of his income, he is self employed. reluctant to use court route as that just antagonises things and too expensive, would love to know how to research income etc???

if he's a limited company (or director of one), you can download accounts for a small fee from the Companies House website. There are various websites where you can search for company directorships by name (if you don't know his company name) which, in my case, was very revealing! The cheapest one I found was something like snoop4directors and you used to be able to set up free alerts but they are now charging for this (but not much). His business website might be revealing and you could get a friend/family member to make an enquiry (obviously depends on the type of business) with a view to having him send out company literature. You need a good 'blagger' to help you with that one - but again, I had someone do that for me and it was revealing (not that it's meant we've secured any maintenance!). Hope that helps.

thanks mumtoboys for that encouragement, I have been doing a bit of detective work today!! will try that site you recommended too. Trouble is, if they dont want to pay, they just hide it too well, but always worth a try.