Spousal maintenance

[JustAski]

Hello

Is anyone able to answer a question about the situations in which spousal maintenance is likely to be awarded? My husband is a high earner (£1.2m gross). I earn £75k gross- we both work full time but I moved into a public sector role so that I could be at home with the kids in the evening (he does very long hours) and also had a couple of child-related career breaks. We have been married over 20 years.

Assuming a 50-50 split of assets, I can then support myself on my income and continue as primary carer (albeit with a different lifestyle) but won't be able to afford half of the kids' expenses (school fees etc) whereas the whole amount will be easily affordable for him. I'm really keen to minimise disruption for the children (school changes etc) so very much hope we can agree that he will fund their education 100%.

I'm still at the thinking and planning stage but wondered how viable it might be to say that I wouldn't make any claim for spousal maintenance for myself at all in exchange for a commitment from him to fully fund the kids' expenses (inc education) until they are independent- about 5 years. He's a reasonable person and a good dad so I know he will also want to minimise disruption.

Firstly, when I say "the Court" I don't mean we'll automatically go to Court - but it if what solicitors will think of, if you're in the agreement stage, and will always consider.

So, the Court will always want to go for a 'clean break'. If it's for the kids, then it's not spousal maintenance anyway. It may be that you decide, or the Court decides, that the asset 50/50 split actually ISN'T the way forward after all because of what the kids need and they might award you more (and don't forget pensions, for the love of god) to ensure that you have enough readies to cover the kids' needs (fees, uni etc). You could be looking at a 65/35 split.

You too have a good earning capacity so spousal maintenance just won't be a thing I reckon.

Speak with a solicitor, get the lay of the land. I hope you can both figure it out without a need for too much input from sols, but high earners usually do require input from sols and IFAs, pensions people etc due to the sums involved - and that is the way it should be.

Ensure your financial order is first thing on your list, the rest can follow.

There's a good podcast I've heard, "No As We Planned". This isn't just about how to survive a divorce and bad behaviours etc, but they have legal people on, divorce coaches and relationship experts. It's an easy listen and some of it makes me absolutely howl with laughter - it wouldn't be a lot of people's first pick but it's been a revelation!

The Legal Queen is also good on insta/tiktok if you want some background to listen to and pick up on, but ideally you'll take your advice from a local and recommended solicitor who is used to dealing with high new worth people.

Good luck.

If he’s a good dad as you say, I can’t see why he won’t just pay the school fees? He can pay them directly to the school anyway.

Thanks very much, both. I hope and expect that this will be a non-issue but keen to know what the legal position might be if we did end up arguing about it. A different split of assets makes sense and I can see would be preferable to ongoing commitments. To be clear, I'm not looking for him to fund my own lifestyle at all but would like to ensure that the children are no worse off as a result of us splitting. (There's no way I could pay half the school fees as they are over £30k per child per year.)

I should see a solicitor but that feels like a really big step.

You're very unlikely to get spousal maintenance any way. I'd just concentrate on the school fees and hope he agrees to pay them

I think that seeing a solicitor would be an excellent step as it will negate the energy you're spending on guess work. You don't need to tell anyone. Just do it and then you'll be able to see a clearer path forward and make some decision.

So - there are two components to maintenance - spousal and child maintenance.

On a salary of £1.2 - child maintenance will not be decided by CMS as it's way above the top income they deal with. On that salary - the Court decides on maintenance level based on children's needs, under top up maintenance governed by Schedule 1 of the Children's Act 1989. (Court - unless you can come to an agreement). It is very normal to include private school fees, travel expenses, kids activities, etc. - into the maintenance agreement.

Court do try to make sure that children's lives can go on as much as possible.
And they also try to make sure that children do not have vastly different lifestyles with different parents. So - if he is able to take kids on nice vacations, you should be able to as well.
Based on that - for eg - your housing needs will be deemed the same. So kids should have own bedrooms in either house, etc.
Depending on your family lifestyle - on that salary - it is not unheard of to have child maintenance of £20-25K/year, and that is on top of school fees.
And often it includes extending child maintenance until they finish Uni - often at that time child receives 2/3 and parent 1/3

As to spousal maintenance - it is not completely gone from legal practice. It all depends on facts. If your H is a reliably high earner, and is likely to continue working for a while - and IF you did give up a higher earning career to care for children in a long marriage - you MAY be able to get a limited-term spousal maintenance for a few years to get your earning power back up. Or - you may be able to ask for maintenance as compensation for the giving up of a career. Again - it'll be term-limited, often ending when your child finishes school.

Courts do prefer clean break - and if there is significant assets, they could give you a larger share, thus effectively capitalising future maintenance. But if there aren't as much assets - than some spousal maintenance is certainly possible.

Do not sell yourself short - please do talk to a solicitor. He earns enough to be able to afford to support his children, and you were presumably married for a long time. So all your financial decisions were made as a family, and as a joint unit. He did his job, he was able to have his career, while you held down the fort at home, raising your children. Upon divorce - all of it counts, and both of your contributions count as well.

PM me if you want to ask questions. My exH had a similar level of income.

If he has any decency about him the school fees shouldn't even be a discussion and he just continues to pay them.

But i guess i depends on the reason for the split as that cant turn some people horrible.

Thanks everyone and particular thanks to @Sashya - that's really helpful about what can be covered by child maintenance.

@JustAski

I'd not count on decency, or in fact on anything. Divorce very often brings out the worst in people. Particularly in high earning men.
They quickly forget the years ago when they were happy their kids had a mother at home - thinking it was a great thing their kids are not raised by strangers.
Men after men says - 'I have worked hard to earn the money we had, and you just "stayed home", or "worked in a really easy job"

This is why it is important to understand how UK family law works. And in a situation where one parent is this high earning - and the family lived to a certain level of "living standard" - private schools, foreign trips, activities, etc - the high earning parent would be told by the court that they make enough to make sure their children's living standard is (largely) not affected negatively.
So - school fees, and overall level of maintenance is all written into a consent decree that the judge then approves.

And the wife's living standard is not expected to drop drastically right after divorce, although it is not expected to keep up with the higher earning's spouse.

Most people base their advice on needs based settlements. You aren’t one of those cases and lifestyle will be a basis for dividing assets and settlements. A clean break settlement is always better than spousal support. But it would be an outcome if he doesn’t have assets. if he doesn’t have a lot by way of assets then you need to determine how viable his income is in the long term.

Any settlement should include provision for school fees and maintaining a decent lifestyle for the children. Again find out how stable his income is before reaching a settlement. You might want the fees paid into a trust.

You need to see a solicitor because this is a high value divorce. You will need a thorough understanding of his wealth before making any decisions.

Thanks, everyone- assets are about £5.5m in total (that's including everything- should be fairly accurate as I do all our financial admin) and his earnings are likely to stay at around this level for the foreseeable future- realistically until whenever he wants to retire (he's early 50s). I have made an appointment for an initial chat with a solicitor. Really grateful for all the responses.

The best option is for you to be able to make a private arrangement which could mean him paying school fees directly to the school and then him paying child support to you, you can use the cms as a starting point but it’s not designed for higher salaries. Don’t forget to include him supporting dc at university (directly not via you) in any agreement. I managed everything on a mutually agreed situation, makes ongoing life easier as you don’t hate each other.

That’s a relatively low asset base compared to his income. People on low 6 figure salaries would tend to have 1-2m in assets by their fifties.

As part of the divorce that will need to fund 2 homes and 2 pensions and a lot of lifestyle.

You are going to need to get some serious financial and legal advice. I’d take as much as I could in a clean break but that might not be more than 50%. Your child support will be high but I would get a trust established to fund school fees instead of relying on his income.

Are pensions included in the 5.5 million figure?

I don't think it's reasonable to expect him to fully fund all the children's expenses. You're also a high earner (albeit not as high as him) and should also be funding your children. If you are both set on this incredibly expensive private school then it makes sense for him to pay those fees, but if he won't and you can't then they'll have to go elsewhere. Having said that, if you are walking away with £2.75million then even without his agreement, £30k would be 1/91 of your net worth. I think the court would rightly say that you can afford to contribute.