How To Vary A Maintenance Order

Maintenance orders can also be referred to as Periodical payments orders. When it comes to varying a maintenance order, the court has a broad range of powers available. These powers can be summarised as follows:

The ability to increase or reduce the level of the periodical payments; The ability to suspend and then later revive periodical payments; The ability to extend the duration (or term) of a periodical payments order (unless the original order contained a bar, which would prevent the court from doing so); The ability to capitalise periodical payments, so that the payee receives a lump sum of capitalised maintenance; and The ability to discharge or terminate the periodical payments order in its entirety. It is important to note that this article only covers variation of maintenance payable for the benefit of the ex-spouse; child maintenance is dealt with separately and parties should be careful to seek legal advice in respect of their own individual circumstances.

The key to any application to vary a maintenance order is that there must have been a change in either yours or your ex-spouse's financial circumstances in order to trigger the need for a variation. These circumstances will of course change on a case by case basis. There are several common reasons why a variation may seem appropriate.

Remarriage Can Block a Maintenance Claim

The first of these is cohabitation. If a person receiving maintenance (the payee) remarries, then they will no longer be entitled to receive maintenance arising as a result of their divorce from a previous marriage. But the law with regards to a payee cohabiting in a new relationship is not as clean cut as remarriage. On learning that their ex-spouse has begun cohabiting with a new partner, the person paying maintenance (the payer) may consider that a downwards variation, or even a termination, is appropriate. However, cohabitation of the payee may not in the court's view necessarily justify an immediate termination of periodical payments. The court is likely to want to see a prolonged period of secure and stable cohabitation before it considered terminating maintenance. This would be so as to avoid the risk of the payee having to face undue hardship were their periodical payments to decrease or come to an end before they were financially secure.

How Does a Change in Income Affect Maintenance?

Another reason that someone might seek to vary a maintenance order is as a result of a change in income. In the...