Spousal/civil partner periodical payments

Practice notes

Periodical payments—variation—procedure

IP COMPLETION DAY: 11pm (GMT) on 31 December 2020 marks the end of the Brexit transition/implementation period entered into following the UK’s...

17th Jan

COVID-19

Practice notes

General principles—spousal and civil partner periodical payments

The court’s power to order periodical payments is contained in section 23(1)(a) of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 (MCA 1973) and Schedule 5, Part 1,...

17th Jan

Practice notes

Periodical payments—variation of orders

The court’s power to vary orders is set out in section 31 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 (MCA 1973) and in Schedule 5 to the Civil Partnership Act...

17th Jan

COVID-19

Practice notes

Impact of remarriage, subsequent civil partnership, or cohabitation

This Practice Note explains the effect that remarriage, forming a civil partnership, or cohabitation have on the ability to apply for financial...

17th Jan

Q&As

If there are new pension assets, can these be shared despite there being a clean break in regard to pension sharing?

When a married couple divorce, the court has wide-ranging powers to divide up the matrimonial assets, regardless of whose name they are in....

Produced in partnership with Chris Bryden of 4 King’s Bench Walk 8th Jan

Q&As

On an application under section 31 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 to vary an existing unsecured spousal periodical payments order, can the court vary the order to make provision for it to be secured? Are there any case law examples of this?

The Q&A proceeds on the basis that an unsecured periodical payments order has been made, which is one of the types of order under section 31 of the...

Produced in partnership with Matthew Haynes of St Ives Chambers 8th Jan

Q&As

Can a financial consent order include two separate spousal periodical payments orders with terms of different lengths?

The power for the court to make spousal periodical payments orders on divorce is contained in section 23 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 (MCA...

Produced in partnership with Nicholas Starks of St Ives Chambers 8th Jan

Practice notes

Periodical payments—means of payment order

A means of payment order (MPO) is an order requiring the payer of a 'qualifying periodical maintenance order' to make payments by a particular method...

Produced in partnership with David Salter, deputy High Court judge and Recorder 8th Jan

Q&As

Where the payer of maintenance resides in the UK, and the payee intends to move to the US in due course, is there any advantage for the payer if the maintenance payments are index-linked to the UK consumer price index rather than the US equivalent?

If the child maintenance service (CMS) has jurisdiction in respect of child maintenance then it will calculate maintenance in accordance with the...

Produced in partnership with Katherine Illsley of 4 King’s Bench Walk 8th Jan

Q&As

Can variation of spousal maintenance be backdated and if so what is the authority? What effect might non-disclosure by one party have on such an application?

Section 31(1) of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 provides: ‘Where the court has made an order to which this section applies, then, subject to the...

Produced in partnership with Max Turnell of 1 King’s Bench Walk 8th Jan

Practice notes

Registration of a maintenance order made in the High Court in the Family Court

Note that the single Family Court replaced the previous three tiers of court structure (family proceedings court, County Court, High Court), save that...

Produced in partnership with David Salter, deputy High Court judge and Recorder 8th Jan

Q&As

Where a party has failed to make payments in accordance with a periodical payments order, can an application for a third party debt order include not only the arrears that have accrued to date but also future payments due under the periodical payments order?

A periodical payments order is an order within financial remedy proceedings under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 or Schedule 1 to the Children Act...

Produced in partnership with Chris Bryden of 4 King’s Bench Walk 8th Jan

Q&As

A party has been married previously. In relation to that marriage, no financial order was made by the court and they receive child maintenance only from their first spouse. Where that party doesn’t receive spousal maintenance from their second spouse, can they still claim spousal maintenance from the first spouse?

Once a party remarries, they are barred from making an application to the court for a financial provision order or property adjustment order (section...

Produced in partnership with Katherine Illsley of 4 King’s Bench Walk 8th Jan

Q&As

A periodical payments order was made by consent in 2001 providing for 50% of a spouse’s pension to be paid direct by the pension company to the other spouse. The order was not made as a pension sharing or pension attachment order. The recipient spouse remarried at some point following the order being made, but the payments continued. On the basis that the periodical payments order should have ended on remarriage by virtue of section 28(1)(a) of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, how may the overpayments be recovered and from whom?

Under section 28 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 (MCA 1973), a periodical payments order automatically ceases to have effect on remarriage of the...

Produced in partnership with Tori Adams of 4 King’s Bench Walk 8th Jan

Q&As