Global Maintenance - Advice needed PLEASE!

[Flintstone39]

My financial order has a Global Periodical Payment clause which states that I must pay £800 per month.

I now have a daughter with my new girlfriend, and we are planning on getting married in the next year or two.

Whilst trying to stick to the court order, I have relied on borrowing to fulfil the agreement which has amounted to me being financially restricted and burdened heavily with debt. Unfortunately, life has worked against me, and I have been unable to increase my earnings to what they were.

I have mentioned to her that I am earning a lot less than i was, and have stressed almost monthly that money is tight. She just gets argumentative every time I mention anything financial and threatens me with child access, and I am not a confrontational person, so the conversation doesn't go far.

I really don't want to have to sell my home and uproot my family and be further away from my son.

My question(s) are-

• Is it too late to try to get a variance to the court order?
• Does my salary drop, and new child constitute to big change?
• From my understanding, Global payments are a split between child and spousal maintenance - should I still be entitled to pay the spousal maintenance aspect of this?
• Will it work against me that I took on extra debt to continue the level of payments set out in the order?

Any advice or guidance would be appreciated.

 

[Ash]

I think this is not a good thing to be tied into. There was someone else on here who had a global maintenance order and had advice on how to get out of it and I think it wasn't easy. Because of the "global" aspect. My understanding is the amount would stay the same regardless of how much is CM and how much is spousal. But I may be wrong.

You will almost certainly need legal advice on this one. You could have another 10 years worth of fees by the sound of it. I'm sorry I can't be more help but I'm not that up on divorce finances.

You need to take care of your stress levels in all this as it does sound stressful.

Normally spousal is limited to say 3 to 5 years and any amount that is set for Child Maintenance by the court, only lasts for a year, and after that it can be by CMS assessment - which would be a percentage of your income. So a global maintenance order doesn't sound good. I'm sure there must be ways round it if someone had no money at all and couldn't pay, but I'm not sure.

Basically if your ex won't agree to vary it, it would probably mean applying to court to vary it, and she might contest that. So you do need some good legal advice here on how to go about all this. You can get a free half hour with a solicitor or three (see which one seems more on the ball).

 

[Unknown01]

I am a trainee solicitor and I can provide some limited guidance although I should advise that this is not my area of expertise.

Global maintenance will have a child maintenance element and a spousal maintenance element. I think the first step to take is to go to CMS and work out what the child maintenance element should be so that only the spousal element of the global maintenance remains payable and begin paying separately (it sounds unlikely to apply to your ex, but this would be more important if they were a universal credit claimant as you can often wipe out any benefit to them of receiving the maintenance).

The next step is to offer mediation, which sounds likely to fail.

Subsequently, you should apply for a variation and no, it is not too late to do so. It is unhelpful to your case that you have carried on paying as it demonstrates an ability to do so but this will be offset by the fact you are relying on credit to make payments. The maintenance that is left will be based on her needs (she doesn't sound like you has a need) and your ability to pay (which you don't).

The only other thing I will say is really to anyone else considering spousal maintenance or - worse - global maintenance. Unless you are earning at least £150k and most of that comes from a stable basic salary, my advice is to never, never, never consent to it. If they want spousal or global maintenance, force them to go to court for it because nowadays the answer will almost always be a firm no from the judge and - at best - time limited maintenance of 2-5 years. Consenting to spousal maintenance moves the goal posts to get rid of the obligation, because rather than being told to pay you've agreed willingly to it and therefore admitted an ability to pay and freely entered into a binding contract to do so. It can mean it is much harder to get a variation; for example, the courts only make spousal maintenance orders based on needs and ability these days and income is not subject to the sharing principle. However, if you reach a consent order voluntarily to "share income" the court will not only respect this but say that they cannot undo a bad deal that you voluntarily entered into.

 

[Ash]

Thanks for that excellent advice @Unknown01 And yes we also usually say never agree to global maintenance!

 

[MagicJ]

for example, the courts only make spousal maintenance orders based on needs and ability these days and income is not subject to the sharing principle. However, if you reach a consent order voluntarily to "share income" the court will not only respect this but say that they cannot undo a bad deal that you voluntarily entered into.

Hi @Unknown01 , can you please explain this section above in a bit more detail? Isn't income a consideration & effectively 'shared' by order of the court at FH when you are asked to hand it over to support the other household?

If they want spousal or global maintenance, force them to go to court for it because nowadays the answer will almost always be a firm no from the judge and - at best - time limited maintenance of 2-5 years.

Going to a FH to allow them to get Spousal Ordered is still significantly expensive if you want to be represented, apologies as I know you mentioned are a trainee solicitor, but Solicitor's fees can rack up very quickly when you add up every email, response, call, report, letter etc , you might as well have consented by this point to allow you to spread that costs evenly over a number of months & years!!

Consenting to spousal maintenance moves the goal posts to get rid of the obligation, because rather than being told to pay you've agreed willingly to it and therefore admitted an ability to pay and freely entered into a binding contract to do so. It can mean it is much harder to get a variation;

If I read this right, don't agree to Spousal, head to a FH instead because a Court Ordered SPOUSAL is significantly easier to vary then a consented SPOUSAL, yet are both not means based & therefore if your means change or your debt: income ratio becomes unbalanced over time, you would just apply for the same variation & with the same evidence pack regardless - no??


Much Appreciated!

 

[Unknown01]

No, income is not subject to the sharing principle and has not been subject to this principle since Waggott v Waggott. Almost always, it is only payable on the basis of need and ability to pay. So for example, someone not working at all might need an income and this need might even be generously interpreted based on the lifestyle of the family but it is still based on need, not sharing. Courts increasingly expect women not to have this need - or not for very long - because they are expected to work or claim benefits.

Rarely, the compensation principle might apply. When I say rare, I mean so rare that a court would make the effort to write up and publish the judgement when it happens. The recipient would need to prove they'd given up an amazing career and that the payer had benefited from this in order for the compensation principle to apply.

As for FH. Please don't waste you money answering her solicitors' letters. You don't need any representation until final hearing, when you need a good barrister who will cost about £5k a day, which is normally less than the lazy spouse is asking for in spousal maintenance and therefore worth the investment. All you need to do in the run up to the final hearing is self rep and make offers. If you receive solicitor's letters demanding things without an instruction from the court, ignore them. They mean diddly squat. What they're doing is trying to get you to voluntarily give in to their demands and set an ongoing precedent (e.g. "send my client £300 a month" will quickly become "he can afford spousal maintenance of £300 a month).

Just respect the court instructions and get the barrister in plenty of time for the FH. Although trust me, her solicitors will cave long before it gets to that unless your wife insists upon it because they have no prospect of winning. Judges these days hate spousal maintenance and they hate Mesher Orders too.

In regard to the spousal, both are NOT means tested. Court ordered spousal maintenance is. Consent order maintenance is a contract you made with your ex. By consent, you can agree to pay too much or agree to share income for example and it will be a lot harder to vary in the future in certain circumstances. For example, if you offer to pay spousal maintenance for five years then decide to retire in four, you might find it harder to vary that last year than if you were ordered to pay.

And one final thought. The obstacle of court and the high failure rate can make spousal maintenance pointless to pursue for most would be recipients.

 

[Ash]

Excellent advice, thanks.