Changes to court agreement following major reduction in salary

[CuriousDaddy]

Backstory:

Hello every. When my Ex and I separated and divorced I was on a reasonable salary but even so agreed to a Court maintenance payment which was 3x what the CMS calculator suggested. I did this so my Ex and my Son (now 18 and in Year 13 of school) could stay in the marital home so that my son could continue at his existing school for continuities sake.

I have made maintenance payments and yearly RPI increased without fail.

However COVID came along and I was made redundant. It was important to me to, for as long as possible, carry on making maintenance payments at their existing level even though I had taken a salary drop to 0. At this time I was living off of my redundancy settlement

I then found another job which was about 40% of the salary of the previous one. I still continued to pay maintenance at the agreed level but am approaching the time where I would like to seek a review of the maintenance level as my income is nothing like it used to be.

My Question (yes, I got there in the end) is as follows:

Have you ever been in a similar position where you have needed to seek a review of your maintenance payments and if so who do you approach in the first instance?

I know you can't offer legal advice but I am interested to know of your experience - successful or otherwise.

Many thanks

If it is for child maintenance, any party can open a case with the child maintenance service after 12 months of the court order. The CMS calculation (it will be 0 if you don't have any income) supersedes the court order. If you got spousal maintenance, you will have to go back to court.

Thank you very much for your reply. I will contact them this week.

Just to say that considering you are only entitled to pay for a few more months, o would discuss this with your child ahead of time to explain why. If they intend to go to Uni, it would be good to start discussing how you'll help them.

I would also mention it to your ex before they receive notification from the CMS.

What are your sons future plans? There is a high chance it will end anyway if he successfully completes his Year 13

Blimey you've only got three more payments to make till your dc finishes - is it really worth screwing things up now?

Is it spousal ? Global or child maintenance?

what’s happening with the fmh?

There is a slim possibility that he may have to retake his year 13 as it seems computer games are more important than home work. If he does I don't really want to get stung for another year of maintenance especially as I am due for retirement soon

I paid till my daughter left school at 19.

Why don't you wait till June then? He may not have to retake - he could do a foundation year.

Because if I am going to reduce maintenance would like to give my ex advanced warning based on some credibility rather than "I am thinking of doing this"

You would be facing this issue even if you were still together and you cant give what you don't have.
You have had a period of nil pay and dipped into your redundancy to maintain payments and have now taken a major reduction in your income. Paying the same level is clearly unsustainable and this would have impacted on your family even if you hadn't split up.
Forget your ds having to repeat y 13 for a minute as you dont know a) how he will actually do in the exams and b) if the school will take him back to repeat the year in any case.
Does your ds have any inkling of your change in circumstances? If so theres a chance he has told his dm. Irrespective with him being 18 she should have been anticipating changes in maintenance and planning for them. CM usually stops when they leave school and when they go to uni its common to pay the support direct to cover uni living costs.
In any case you should tell her what has happened since 2020 , how you have tried to keep things from affecting them both but you need to be honest about your situation.

If your son was supposed to be finishing school in a few months, but might not because of his own choices, I might not start with cms.

You can use the online calculator to figure out what you will owe at minimum so that part is simple. The bigger issue is how do you and your ex want to handle your son’s transition to adulthood, especially given he isn’t approaching it particularly well.

you need to talk not just about money, but about what responsibilities will transition to your offspring and at what point. With my own parents, it was decided my father would provide all the financial support while I was at university and that it would be paid directly to me. I even got it in writing in a court order because they divorced so close to my attendance. If he doesn’t go to university, you should have a plan for what support you are willing to provide and let his mother know now.

Once the two of you are on agreement about an approach, he needs to know what is coming. It might help him take his future more seriously if he has to start thinking about how at some point he is going to be very involved in his own financial support and eventually, fully responsible for himself.

My DS does know about my change in circumstances because I told him. I have never discussed the levels of maintenance I pay his mother because I don't think that is my place to do so.

I thank you for your reply - at the time of writing it's early Monday morning and I need a caffeine fix so I can absorb everyone's replies!

At some point, you have to put on your own oxygen mask. You've done the right thing for a long time and now you need them to pick up the slack on this.

You havent answered if this just child maintenance ?
if there is any element of spousal or global maintenance then the answers are going go be different

What is the point now? Give her advance notice that payments stop totally in August, but if he does need to re-sit the year you wouldn't have budgeted for that so can only pay minimum cms amount.

Then pay the existing amount til August. It's five more payments.

Separately ... have you looked into how much he will need at uni? If your income is low he may be better using your income for his student loan application. Otherwise you are on the hook anyway for the top up to full student loan

Well if your salary goes down it makes sense to ask for a reduction in payments.

You need enough money to live on too.

Payments have to be based on your current financial circumstances. Check out what you need to do legally to get that reviewed.

Hi,
I started divorce proceedings after my husband announced me that he wants to leave me.
We’ve been gathering all the elements to complete financial settlement.
today my employer announced me that I’m redundant and my last day in mid-June.
How does that impact my financial settlement?
Do I have to find out another job asap or wait until financial disclosure is completed?

@Fat you would be better starting your own thread rather than resurrecting an old one.

You should begin looking for work immediately or it might be construed that you are wilfully unemployed / not maximising your income / showing bad conduct.

It's fine to not have a job at financial disclosure, but only if you can prove you are actively looking.