- You can apply for maintenance for your self, you may want the money to be paid weekly or monthly or you may just want to receive a one-off payment in a lump sum.
- If you and your partner do not want to be tied to each other financially in the future you might want a "Clean Break". For this you have to ask the court to settle the financial matters once and for all.
- You can also apply for an order that your partner guarantees a certain level of payments to you over a given period of time, known as "Secured Periodical Payments".
- If you want your partner to pay maintenance for the children you have to apply to the Child Support Agency, not to the court. However, there are circumstances in which you can apply to the court for maintenance for the children. For example, if:
- They are step-children or married children.
- They are 19 or over but are still in full-time education.
- If the CSA have decided how much your partner has to pay and it is not enough and you need a "top-up", for example to pay school fees and maintain a particular lifestyle for the child.
- You want an order dealing with property for the children.
- You have a disabled child and extra money is needed for his or her care.
- Your child is making a claim against the estate of your partner who died without making reasonable provisions for your child.
Remember the Child Support Agency has no power to make an assessment for maintenance if the person whom you are asking to pay the maintenance does not live in the UK.
Registering Maintenance Orders in the Magistrates Court
If you apply for maintenance for yourself from your partner and the order is made in the County Court or the High Court you can apply to have the Maintenance Order "Registered" in your local Magistrates Court.
This is supposed to make the collection of maintenance payments from your partner easier. Your partner has to make the payments direct to your local Magistrates Court. The Magistrates Court are then responsible for sending the payments to you.
If your partner stops paying or falls behind with the payments then the Magistrates Court can issue a "Warrant" for him or her to appear at the court to explain why they have stopped paying or fallen behind with the payments.
Your partner can apply to the court to reduce the payments or you can apply to have the payments increased if your partner's financial circumstances change.
However, sometimes administrative difficulties mean that Magistrates Courts are not very effective and can be slow to chase your partner when the payments stop.
It may be better instead to get an order that your partner makes the maintenance payments to you by standing order directly into your bank account.
Enforcing Maintenance Orders
If you obtain an order from the court that your partner has to pay you maintenance, or the CSA tells your partner that they have to pay maintenance for your child and your partner refuses or stops paying, the following can be done.
- Both the CSA and the court can make your partner's employer (if they are working) deduct a certain amount from his salary to meet the maintenance payments.
- If your partner owns another property you may be able to put a "Charge" on the property so that when it is sold he/she has to pay the arrears of maintenance from the sale proceeds. You may be able to apply to the court for an early sale of their property once you have obtained a Charge.
- If a third party owes money to your partner or is holding money for your partner the court can order that the third party pays some or all of that money to you.
- If you are warned that your partner is moving money between bank accounts and is trying to hide details of his or her finances you can obtain a court order to freeze his or her accounts or stop them removing money out of the country before the court has had a chance to decide how to divide the assets.
- You can apply to the court for your partner to be sent to prison if he or she continues to refuse to pay maintenance.
Contact Collette O'Connor for more information on any area of Family Law. |
