The Family Court recently ruled on a divorced couple’s cross-applications for enforcement and variation of a periodical payments order originally made in 2012.
The husband had been ordered to pay the wife £2,000 per month on a joint lives basis, linked to the Retail Prices Index (RPI). The wife claimed that, while the husband had paid £2,000 per month, he had not paid the RPI uplift. She sought to enforce arrears which she said amounted to £16,882 over a six-year period, plus interest. The husband claimed that there were no arrears because he had paid for the wife’s private health insurance, dental plan and mobile phone. He counter-applied for further liability for spousal maintenance to end.
The Court noted that, broadly speaking, the aim of the 2012 order seemed to have been to achieve a 50:50 split of the net capital generated during the marriage. The pension sharing orders made at that time had not been implemented, however. The husband was now aged 60 and was a self-employed accountant: his 2023/24 tax return showed earnings of more than £89,000 for the year. He had remarried and had a new family to support, and said he hoped to retire shortly. The Court considered that his reported monthly outgoings of £15,000 seemed excessive, but was not convinced that he could continue to pay £2,000 per month indefinitely. The wife was aged 66 and was unable to work but had purchased a solar farm to enhance her income. Noting that she lived in a mortgage-free property and had only herself to support, the Court placed her reasonable needs at £3,000 per month.
The Court first ruled on whether the husband was indeed in arrears by not paying the RPI element of the spousal maintenance. He had admitted that he was technically in breach of the order but had provided evidence that, once the additional payments for the wife’s health insurance, dental plan and mobile phone were considered, he had actually paid more than he had been ordered to. For that reason, the Court dismissed the wife’s application.
Turning to the husband’s application to cease paying spousal maintenance, the Court found that the implementation of the pension sharing orders, the wife’s state pension and the likely income from the solar farm would provide her with a net income of £2,166 per month. The Court ordered the husband to pay £1,000 per month going forward to make up the shortfall between her income and her reasonable needs.
Expressing its concern that there had been no finality in the litigation, the Court encouraged the parties to agree a capitalisation figure so that a clean break could be achieved. It feared that the door would otherwise be left open for the husband to make a further variation application as he approached retirement, or for the wife to do so if her circumstances changed.