Increase due to RPI

[BlackTulip71]

Hi all, I'm back on here after a few years... I receive a monthly payment in relation to two children post my divorce. The consent order indicates that the monthly amount should be reviewed each year and increased in line with RPI. My ex is refusing this. Is the only way to go back to court on this ?

Payment is generally linked to salary - in the U.K. you can approach cms but be aware it could go up or down

Why he’d agree to that in consent order as his income won’t be going up

however, a cms takes precedent over court order after 12 months and courts don’t have jurisdiction on child maintenance

is it just child mayor dies it refer to global maintenance or spousal maintenance?

If this is child maintenance, then after 12 months either party can apply to the CMS. RPI was over 10% last year and 8.7% projected this year. People are not getting payrises that match this so the likelihood is if you successfully enforce the court order at some expense to yourself, he will apply to the CMS and what you receive will fall to what his income has actually risen by. It might even fall further as sometimes the amounts of child maintenance agreed in a court order exceed what the paying parent has to pay according to the CMS formula.

If this is spousal or global maintenance, then this would be a bit different although I doubt anyone would be stupid enough to agree to a global maintenance order by consent (they are notoriously unfair on the paying party). If this was spousal maintenance then technically you are entitled to RPI now but realistically if his salary has increased in line with the national average, he probably cannot afford to pay you the nearly 20% increase in the cost of the order over the past two years. I think in this case you could push the issue but it would come with some risk as he could probably make a strong argument that the cost of living means that he can no longer afford to pay you what you are receiving now, let alone an increase. You might find trying to enforce the order results in an application for variation and he may well be successful in that.