court order and maintenance payments

can someone tell me what happens if two parents signed a court order on divorce about maintenance on 12th august 1998 and then ex wife went to the csa on 3rd august 1998. As this is what happened to my husband and the csa did get involved and it ended up in a mess until in 2001 the ex wife pulled away from the csa. Unfortunately her solicitors put in the court order that maintenance be paid until each child attained the age of 17 yrs or ceased full time secondary education whichever came first. Unfortunately my husband was made redundant in January 2011 and went to the court saying he couldnt pay her the money until he got another job, he hasnt found one yet and is on jobseekers. She is taking him to court for arrears of which her solicitor has not sent a letter from csa confirming this about. Does he still have to pay these arrears when the court order was not 1 year and a day old???? any advice please

Because of the age of the order the court have jurisdiction though i`m not to sure given she asked the CSA to assess the same year the order was made.

Long story short if he can pay the money owed with savings or whatever he will almost certainly be made too even if not working.

yes, but the csa have not informed him he owes this money. His ex wife's solicitors have said he does but no proof was sent with their letter. Plus she shouldnt have gone to the csa in august 1998 as a court order was going to be signed on 4th august and stamped on 12th august 1998. By the time my husband sent the forms back to csa and they calculated the new amounts which changed non stop they shouldnt have touched it as they are not allowed to do so until it is one year and one day old so ie, 13th august 1999. Someone made a mistake and why should we pay for someones mistake at the end of the day.

He will be liable for any arrears if there is a court order in effect. What was the outcome when he went to court after becoming redundant in January 2011?

he went to the court in person as csa told him to and to let them no he was unable to pay. csa said the ex wife needed to go to court to have the order revoked and then go back to csa after she had done it. We had a letter in jan 2011 saying he didnt need to pay anything and that he had no arrears. The arrears we think may be from 1998/1999 but he paid and has always paid until december 2010. the arrears was based on tribunal but as i said we have nothing from them other than the letter of january 2011.

on top mu husband always paid more than the court order said. his ex wife went to the csa a day before she signed the court order. but it clearly states that the csa cannot get involved if the order is not a year old. They did get involved not sure why because he was paying the monies to the ex wife as per court order until csa stated what he needed to pay and then they took it out of his bank account each month. The other issue we have is that the wording in the court order says payment due until each child reaches the age of 17 yrs or ceases full time SECONDARY education whichever comes the later. We dont understand when we should have stopped paying anyway.