EX-H has applied for downward variation of Periodic Payments - Help Please

[BillytheConk]

Hello

I wonder if anyone has any advice for me? At third and final court hearing two years ago my EX-H was ordered to pay me a lump sum and then monthly periodic payments for life.

History of marriage - long marriage, DC, financial and emotional abuse throughout marriage, family business involving his family, my contributions were financial, physical (ie I worked to contribute to said business), childcare etc etc. Ex-H difficult and entitled, wanted rid of us (me and DC) but didn't see why he should pay me back for all I had contributed. His family similar.

His business - never been better - other businesses in same field thriving currently.

I have depression, other illnesses, and am near retirement age. I have all DC and partners living with me, all in further education or apprenticeships, so very low earners from whom I take no financial contributions.

I rely totally on the periodic payments. I earn very little with no prospects of this changing. I receive minimal tax credits etc, which will cease totally next year I think. I have no life to speak of, and no spare cash at all.

Ex-H has suddenly reduced the payments by half, and applied to the courts for a downward variation. We have a date for the hearing. My solicitor tells me that we may have to have up to three hearings, again, to sort this out.

Ex-H is an entitled and arrogant liar, who had no worries re showing his true colours in court last time. I have NO money, and cannot possibly pay any legal fees. I have no idea how I am going to survive until the hearings, financially or mentally.

Can anyone give me any advice please? I don't even know what I am asking!

I only read the first post. He cannot change the sum. He has to keep it as it is until the court orders it to be lowered. YOu are entitled to it at the previous level in the meantime.

Lifetime awards used to be very common but now tend to be for a few years. There was a barrister's wife (QC's wife) last year who aftrer 30 yeras after the divorce when her husband had remarried she got more money - a lump sum I think to buy out future claims. They had never had a clean break as you have not.

If he is doing better than before that does not matter. What matters is what your needs are. If he is pleading poverty then you need to try to show otherwise. (In my case I paid to my husband despite all the children living with me as I earn more)

Look at your situation once pensions kick in too. Did you get an order to share pensions once you both reach that age?

Thankyou baby - you are very kind.

Xenia - thankyou for your reply. For reasons I don't want to state on here there is no pension on either side. The business is the pension. The business will pass to my DC anyway eventually as will my property such as it is.

That's good. Make sure if you own half the company you have information about it and that yo both have made wills.

I think periodical payments generally stop at pension age but that may just be because people have payments. I know someone divorcing his wife and she is getting £65kpa until remarriage (she will probably therefore choose not to remarry) and that stops when the pensions kick in as they get half each.

Billy, how come spousal maintenance was agreed but no child maintenance? Are you sure an amount of the figure he was giving you wasn't child maintenance? It sounds bizarre that spousal maintenance was agreed but not the child aspect.

Yes, it sounds unusual but sounds like the youngest child is about to turn 18 anyway so not an on going issue.

Well it kind of matters because if part of the payment was child maintenance and the OP was mistaken, then he would be within reason to reduce payments. That's why I was checking.

Choc - EX-H delayed and messed about so long that by the time all this came to court as Xenia says, DC were almost out of child maintenance ages. I had to support them in the meantime for years as he refused to pay anything for them - not that he paid anything much while we were married anyway!

I had no idea that my case was so unusual. The periodic payments for me are for life. I see them as a payback for my contribution to the business/marriage.

If you had put over 25 years of effort and all your finances into a business and that business is now thriving you would expect to get something back for that I think.

Ex-H was abusive to me and to one DC throughout marriage. He is arrogant and stupid, luckily for me, and was not worried about showing this during last hearings.

I just hope that his arrogance has done it for him finally this time. I never want to see him again, and the thought of the court again so soon is over shadowing everything, and affecting my attempts to earn a living.

CHN, true. If the sums are reduced because the order said XYZ for wife and ABC for children but she just remembered one sum coming in not realisding when the youngest turns 18 payments for the child stopped she might think he had reduced it without the right to do so although the application for the court to vary it sounds as if it is not that some of it was for the child.

Does he own a limited company and are you a shareholder in it and do you receive dividends from your shares in it and do you have a seat on the board of directors? If not why not?

Xenia - not limited company no. Can't really say more than that about business on here. Definitely no payments for DC involved.

I really am grateful for all the answers. xx

Well you could have been made or perhaps are a partner in the business - 50% opartner in a partnership. I was just considering issues like if he sells the business or ensures his income from it is 0.001p a year which is not hard to do unless your exwife or husband is fully involved in the business and has powers to determine how it operates and changes things.

Yes I understand where you are coming from there. If he sells the business (which is unlikely, even to spite me) it is not difficult to know how much he receives for it. He has attempted to show that he has received the equivalent of 0.001p a year, which is what he has been doing ever since the original court order two years ago.

Sadly for him, other businesses in same field are thriving at present and so he has a difficult argument to show that he is not.

As I have said - I was happy with the original order. I was struggling a bit but trying to increase my income in various ways. I was taking the long view overall, and once the DC were finally away and self-sufficient I would have been OK. It is him that has thrown his toys out of the pram.

I wonder why he has? Has he found someone else or got an expensive new hobby? Could he not set up a separate new business in ac ompany name ostensibly run by someone he knows and divert the current business into that to "prove" he is newly impoverished? If you owned th current business together under an agreed partnership deed you would have a lot more rights, power and control but that would have been something to negotiate at the date of the divore settlement not now. May be also try to get more work so you are not reliant on him

He has been planning this since the minute he stormed out of the court when the order was made.

I have worked all my life and am trying to get more work at present. My age is against me sadly. I was very stupid and thought that he was an honourable person when we were married. He isn't.

For reasons that I can't say on here, he can't just hide the business with someone else.

I am very grateful to everyone for their input and I feel much more confident now. I left it to the judge to decide last time, and I will do the same again this time.

He has another lady-friend and his DC never see him. He has got what he wanted, which was us to go away. But as I am a non-person to him he doesn't see why he should pay me back. Anyway, thankyou once again, and I am going to get this thread deleted now as I don't want him to find it.

Why are you keeping your children's partners? That's ridiculous. If they are old enough to co habit then they're old enough to keep themselves.

Hello lisaro - I have changed various details - and that's not really the case totally - and that's not really the issue. I was perfectly happy with the situation as it stood.

Thankyou for your comment anyway.