Varying consent order

My 43 year old partner receives 30K per annum for herself and 7 K for her 10 year old daughter from her extremely rich ex. The spousal maintenance is for joint lives or until remarriage. There is no clause on cohabitation. He wants to cease paying spousal support in Apr 2019. I moved into her house about 6 months ago and contribute a small amount towards expenses. I am in receipt of a pension and have a small amount of income from property letting. I am told he stands a good chance of success in varying the order despite the way it is expressed. My partner is not financially independent and would lose the house, her income and her daughters home if he succeeds. Is he likely to succeed and does it help matters if I move out. He is a drunken bully who will take it to court as money is no object to him and we can not afford the costs of proper defence.

That's unusual as normally the wording is remarriage or six months of cohabitation.

What your partner will have to show if it goes to court is that your relationship with her is unstable and not something that she can rely on.

If you are not contributing financially then the court will assign a level that you should be contributing and assume that you are, joining you to the case and potentially going through your finances.

You living there reduces her need for continued financial support from her ex because you need to pay rent or a mortgage somewhere so why wouldn't you pay it for the property you live at?

The child support will stay the same as presumably it's calculated using the standard CMS calculation.

If it does get reduced or dropped to nominal then if you break up with her she can always go back to court and apply to have it increased.

Thank you. Given the fact he can easily afford the sum (he is a multimillionaire) can he go back to the court merely on the ground that I am now cohabiting?

Yes because the order to pay is based on his ability to pay obviously but equally on her need which if you are living with her is significantly reduced because you can pay the mortgage or rent.

You haven’t said and there is no need to but there have been several cases over the last few years where ex husbands have been back to court to adjust maintenance orders where the judges have ended up telling the ex wife to get a job and from those cases general guidlines were established for continued payment with one of them being ex wives should be in full time work once the child was 11 and even if they were not the court would assume they were and reduce payments.

So actually you being there or not may end up being just one factor in her ex husbands downward variation court application.

You don't give much detail of the Court Order or what else it contained.

How long has it been in place and how have circumstances changed since? For example is your partner now working full time again now her daughter is older having worked fewer hours at the time of the split?

At CMS rates you wouldn't need that massive an income to pay £7k pa child maintenance but for a 43 year old (and she would have been younger at the time of the order) to get a tax free income of £30k a year for the rest of their lives is a lot of money.

Thank you. Court order written in 2011. other details include varying it in line with CPI, school fee payment and agreed extras. The petitioner set up a holiday business based around the house she bought for her child and herself. She converted two outbuildings and upgraded and existing cottage to give her 5 letting rooms. She works at running this. In the 6 years it has been running, she has been below the tax threshold 5 times after running costs have been deducted.

Sorry, I meant to say the petitioner is 53. She and the ex decided to have a child when she was 43. So when she finishes education, the petitioner will be in her 60s with no pension, limited employment prospects etc. Presumably this was one of the reasons for the original joint lives or until remarriage award.