Dynamic New News on Maintenance
The Court of Appeal has just made a Judgment rendering pretty serious consequences for the position that divorced spouses might have maintenance for life.
Whilst it’s always been the reality in smaller and medium sized cases that maintenance should be a staged process, due to be phased out just as soon as is appropriate, there have in the bigger money cases been suggestions that maintenance should effectively give some form of support for life.
The problem with this contention is that although it looks like the assets might be able to bear it the reality is that usually it discourages a husband or wife from ever working again because they know they’re in receipt of maintenance and don’t need to accept any change unless or until the other spouse’s circumstances might change detrimentally through either retirement, ill health or redundancy.
This seems to be a likely forward way for the Court to develop. One of the three Judges sitting at The Court of Appeal was the famous Sir James Munby. We will have to see if the matter turns into an appeal to the Supreme Court (formerly The House Of Lords).
