My partner is taking his ex to court to reduce maintenance, set by a consent order.

We have recieved the ex's form E and on it she has alotted £18000 for court fees in her expenditure. The consent order runs for the next 11yrs.Before we decided to take this to court, we wrote to the ex asking for £150 reduction. She refused this, saying she could not live without it!!

Now I may be being silly, but would a judge not see that the amount she has spare to fight us, is roughly the same as she would lose if we reduced the maintenence?


Also, we thought she had a very good solicitor (they turned over my partner the first time round!) Why was she advised to continue, not settle?

Am I just being too simplistic???

I have never had any dealings with court, so am a little in he dark, all help gratefully recieved.

C

Hi mrstoosoft,

When you say ' the consent order runs for the next 11 yrs', do you mean that maintenance is payable for the next 11 years ?

May I ask if your partner is using a solicitor for this court procedure ? It may just be if this is the case that taking the matter to court ends up costing you a lot more than the reduction your partner is seeking.

The only point of view I can give as to the court fees is the following : she has not spent that money yet. Nor has the reduction been granted. There is not automatically in the court's eye a ­link­ between fees and maintenance.

Red XX

Hi mrstoosoft,

When you say ' the consent order runs for the next 11 yrs', do you mean that maintenance is payable for the next 11 years ?

May I ask if your partner is using a solicitor for this court procedure ? It may just be if this is the case that taking the matter to court ends up costing you a lot more than the reduction your partner is seeking.

The only point of view I can give as to the court fees is the following : she has not spent that money yet. Nor has the reduction been granted.

Hi there

Eighteen thousand is about right for a fully contested variation application which goes all the way to a final hearing.

I hate to give you the bad news, but costs can often follow the event in these applictions, so if your partner fails to secure a reduction he could end up paying her costs as well as his own.

A variation application should be made only if there is an overwhelming case for the reduction. I dont know what figure you are attempting to reduce from, nor do I know her income, but you may well find that £150 a month is not worth fighting for to him, but is the difference to her between coping and struggling.

I would urge you to rethink the application, or at the least take legal advice.

Amanda

Thanks both for replying,

Yes the maintenance is payable for the next 11yrs.He is self reping to keep the costs down. He has had a free half hour an it is all looking quite promising. We initially asked for a reduction of £150 as a friendly request to her better nature,it didn't work!! We actually want a lot more. He has to support me and the children when we marry. I work part time at the mo, but will lose all my benefits and therefore will not be able to keep up mortgage re-payments. We are not being money grabbing, there is a lot more involved, as I can see how it may look!!

When they divorced, she claimed she needed £137000 to buy a house, my partner lent her this money as she said she could find no house suitable under that amount. My partner agreed to lend her £24000 as he wanted to do the best by her.He had to take out a loan to do this as she got more than the lions share of the pot!!

It turns out she bought a house for £191000 and has been using the intrest, among other things to build up sizeable savings. We are seeking to recover the £24000 with the interest.

Her form E is full of massive deposits into her account, it is also full of lies. Ie she says she recieved £77 pounds in interest last year, but in fact it was over £3000.

I really hope we do not have to pay her costs though. I am a little worried now!!

If anyone has any personal experience in varying maintenance, I would appreciate any advice.

C