Help with new CM request

Hi
Thanks in advance for anyone who takes the time to respond and sorry it’s long, I’m just trying to give the full picture.

My partner and his ex were married for about 12 years, in their mid thirties when split. They split up 4 years ago and divorce was finalised 2 years ago. Everything was pretty amicable considering. My partner is successful and reasonably well paid, his ex was a stay at home mum for their 3 children, the youngest is now 9, eldest 15.

They split because they weren’t in love anymore and she fell in love with someone else (says nothing happened before they split), they immediately became an item and had a baby.

My partner and his ex agreed on a financial settlement, without going through lawyers or courts, that he would give her 50% of his salary for 5 years, then £1,000 a month for another few years. She would also get the house, in full, rather than split his pension later down the line so they could have a Clean Break. They had no further assets. It was expected, with half his salary, that there would be no need for “further claims” or child maintenance as they should both be able to provide for their children with half of his salary each. They have the children 60/40 (mum has 60%). She was adamant at the time that she wanted to be independent and didn’t want to be supported by him, just needed time to get on her feet again after all the years not working.

The ex has subsequently got herself into financial difficulties due to being hopeless with money and refusing to get a job, she extended the mortgage date to reduce payments to as little as possible, commenced building work on the house due to the new partner’s two children (subsequently that relationship broke up, so the building work is half complete and she can’t afford to remedy it) and other poor decision like opening a cafe with her now ex on whim in an extremely poor area unlikely to have any passing trade who could afford a £4 smoothie....

The ex is now chronically in debt, in the region of £20-£30k (in 2 years) due to mismanagement of money (she never had to do this before as my partner did everything of this nature). She has gone to a financial advisor to get some guidance to get her affairs in order. She has apparently been told “she had the worst divorce in the history of the world” and now wants to come after him for child maintenance on top of 50% of his salary.

Custody is split, we have he children 5 days out of every 14 - Mondays and every other weekend. They split the cost of school clothes, trips etc. We take the children on holiday twice a year.

A rough calculation looks like it would be an extra £600/£700 a month in CM if his ex was successful, on top of the tax free 50% of his salary she receives. We have two babies under 2 ourselves and a large home to house all 5 children so they can have a room each. We don’t have a lot of disposable income, as our priority was building a stable family home together for all the children.

In light of this I have a few questions:

1) Is the CM a reasonable/liable request from his ex?
They had an agreement that the support he gives her would cover everything, and now she’s in trouble she has reneged on that agreement. CM seems to not be officially covered by the divorce though in legal terms so she is entitled to claim it. But if he had to pay CM on top of thre agreed spousal support it would mean she would take about 75% of his salary every month! I can’t imagine any court thinking this is acceptable. Going to work every day and giving your ex 70% of those earnings seems absurd.

2) If this is likely to be seen as unreasonable by the courts, should we go to court to get the spousal support adjusted if she wants CM? We genuinely can’t afford to do both and it seems unreasonable that he has to bail her out for the rest of her life.

3) Is there a risk, if we did go to court that his pension would be at stake? They agreed not to split the house and for her to have it in full as her “pension” for the future. We really want her out of ours lives once the children are older.

4) Is there a risk that the length of spousal support could to be made longer than the 7/8 years they already agreed? I don’t know what standard terms would be. Supporting her for longer than 5 years seems unreasonable to me.

5) Is 50% of your salary considered pretty high for spousal support anyway?

(As an aside, I earn what his ex receives from my partner in spousal support and I contribute equally to our mortgage and bills. I should hope, as we are not married, that my status would not be taken in to account)

Thanks again

It looks like this was agreed, but not stamped in an official court order?
In that case he should no longer pay 50% of salary, as it’s not official, and JUST pay the CMS amount instead.
Her new debts are not really your problem, but if he had a official financial agreement upon divorce, this would have saved this hardship and grief.
It’s best to get a clean break financial settlement.

Thanks for your reply. They got their financial agreement signed off in the courts as part of the divorce but I don’t know what that ‘officially’ means, ie: what would happen if he stopped payments or contested it in light of this new CM request. She knew their financial agreement was inclusive of CM but it doesn’t state that officially (I mean why would you even need to if you are giving someone 50% of your salary!). Nothing is officially stipulated about the children ie: financial support of children - other than the custody agreement - so it appears to has given her the loophole to make a claim, albeit 4 years later. It’s so stressful, the CSA have been on the phone already wanting to make it official. I’ll look the agreement you mentioned. Thanks.

You need to find out whether the agreement was written up into a Consent Order and stamped by the court.

To advise on the maintenance element, we need to know the exact wording of any section about maintenance. A financial advisor is not the best person to advise on the details of family law!

It may be that there is a global
maintenance order. This kind of order combines spousal maintenance and child maintenance. If this order is in place, it means monthly payments remain the same whether there is an application to CMS or not. So any CMS assessment may change the spousal maintenance element of the payment and a separate payment may be made for child maintenance to satisfy CMS but the overall amount paid is the same.

His CMS liability will be reduced if he has more children living with him. The number of nights the children spend with you will also reduce it.

On another note, your status/income is not relevant save that you contribute to joint living costs. You mention a mortgage. Please make sure that your name is on the Deeds so you have some protection if you were to break up in future.

As to how pension and whether any agreement can be reopened, it depends a: on what agreement they have and whether it is a court order. It also depends on the figures involved in the original settlement and whether there was full financial disclosure. It is possible for a consent order to be overturned if not everything was declared properly. If neither party had legal advice, the correct process may not have been followed.

Hadenoughnow

Dig out the paperwork it will say if it is a court order or not on it.

We don't know anything about ages, incomes, timescales for maintenance etc but 50% of salary is a massive amount especially if the ex had the majority of the assets.

Thanks for your responses. I’ve found out it was a court order, but not a global one so does not include child maintenance even though that was what thhey knew it to mean and agreed on at the time (hence no request for CM until now that she is in debt). I don’t know where that leaves us?

It was explicit that the ex gets the house but has no rights to pension or any other claim on his income (but again, not explicitly for child maintenance).

I don’t know what we should do as next steps really, the CSA will just set the ball rolling and take money so should we stop paying the court order and take it back to court or is the agreement such that even though it’s not explicit about CM it legally is all encompassing. 50% salary plus CM is just not feasible for us.

Oh dear. It sounds like a badly worded order.

Was it drawn.up by a solicitor?

Is there anything in writing to support what they had agreed? It could be emails or a draft agreement perhaps.

It sounds like his only option may be to apply for a variation. Unless his salary is stratospheric, I cannot see that paying half of it plus child maintenance could be seen as fair. Of course though we don't really know how the agreement was reached, what the assets pot looked like etc.

He would have to show that it is simply not affordable.

The start point would be a letter to suggest that applying for CM in addition is against the spirit of the agreement. It should explain that this is not affordable and that an application for a variation will be needed to sort things out if she doesn't agree.

Hadenoughnow