i have a financial order whereby i agreed to pay £1k maintenance (child maitenance £220 + spousal maintenance).
i work as a contractor and since the order (feb14), i have worked no more than 6 months a year. i would like to apply for a reduction of the maintenance amount on the basis that:
1. i have not worked or earned anything in the last 6 months
2. i'm 55 years old and am finding it more and more difficult to find work. low pay work won't be enough to provide for the £1k maintenance.
3. i rent, have a very small pension and no family support whatever.
4. my ex-wife earns more now than she did when the order was made.
i want to suggest to the court that i pay £500 when not employed and the full amount when i am. i'm hesitant as i understand from reading about a few court cases that once a financial order is made and is final there little chance of success in appealing against it in future.
if i don't appeal then i would aim to just pay half of the maintenance.
my ex-wife rejected my proposal on the basis that any reduction in the maintenance will have to made up for out of my share of the marital home where she and the kids live.
i hope to hear about similar cases on this blog.
I'm pretty sure you can apply for a variation of the order, but you would need to do that in court.
As far as child maintenance, if the order has been in place for longer than 12 months you can open a case directly with The child maintenance service and this would override the court order, I can see that this isn't the case for you yet so your best option would be to get it back to court.
Hi There,
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As Mojo has said I'm sure that I have heard of variation to finances going to court, I know someone from this forum did it a while ago, I can't remember the outcome though, but I would say that if the circumstances have changed and that you now earn less and she earns more then you would have a good chance of getting it changed.
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Also as Mojo has said the fanacial order for child maintenance only stands for 12 months so if it has been longer than that since the order was written the contact CMS and they will calculate what you should be paying based on what you have earnt.
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GTTS
Thanks for the replies. I'm glad there
The children maintenance is not a problem for me to pay and as such the CSA is not relevant. It's the spousal maintenance that is the issue and currently makes up 80% of the maintenance amount.
I would certainly get some legal advice to see what the outcome might be if you go back to court to vary the order. The courts do expect he mother to work where reasonable, so if she is doing that and circumstances have changed substantially, then you might have a chance of getting a fairer outcome, but as I said, I think a consultation with a solicitor would be worth the time and money,