How long does it take to get a court order variation???

[Kitsmummy]

Hi, my ex husband has just told me that he is going to drop my monthly child maintenance from £900 to £300, with effect from 4 weeks time!!

His reasoning is that he has just quit his very well paid job to concentrate on his part time cider making venture (so no income currently, although we all know that his mother will be supporting him). He has invested well over £100k in this, he drives a very top of the range Audi and his mother gave him £35k at Christmas to invest in the business. His girlfriend is also pregnant.

I have taken on a second job a month ago because I am skint.

I've had a brief chat with the solicitor who handled my divorce 5 years ago and apparently he cant just stop it...until there is a variation made in court, he will just be getting into arrears. I suspect he'll probably get the variation if he takes it to court but can anyone tell me how long this kind of thing takes to do? Obviously I need it to be strung out for as long as possible.

He has savings to generously pay me £300 a month, because apparently he needn't actually pay me anything at all due to no income!

He can go straight on to CMS maintenance after a year of paying Child Maintenance, so why he'd apply to court is anyone's guess.

It's because it's court ordered...it can only be changed by applying to court

Is it described as child maintenance in the court order? If so, he can apply to CMS once the court order is a year old, as @Collaborate (who is a family law solicitor or barrister IIRC!) rightly says.

If it's described as "spousal" or "global" maintenance then I think that's different.

It is described as child maintenance I think (although it's higher than CMS would have calculated at) but there was a clause inserted which meant he couldn't just go straight to CMS.

I don't understand the technicalities but my solicitor confirms he will need a variation and my ex husband himself even references it in his email...says we can either do this by a court variation or I can just agree to it in correspondence.?

And thank you for your responses!

If he's self employed you may not get anything via CMS apart from £5 per week!

Yep I realise that 😩

To be honest, I think it's inevitable that it will stop but I'm just hoping i might get one or two months more notice. He also knew he was going to do this months ago but just didn't bother to warn me!

Was it through your consent order in the divorce... or is it actually court ordered as his income was so high?

If it’s simply in the consent order he doesn’t need to go back to court but it can only be overruled by the CMS after 12 months.....

But if court order then yes he would have to go back for a variation as he would be in breach of this.

And obviously Disney Dad is still taking the DC on holiday this summer but as of today I'm now having to abandon holiday plans. Arsehole.

Yes PPP it's exactly that situation...a court order that needs a variation in court

Does that mean you can contest it as it would leave you in poverty?