Financial divorce proceedings
Financial divorce proceedings
Ongoing maintenance in divorce proceedings
When a marriage or civil partnership comes to an end, one of the first concerns is usually around money and how each party is going to manage financially on their own. Initial discussions tend to involve questions around who is going to stay in the family home? can each party meet basic needs like mortgage/rent and household bills? should one spouse continue to financially support the other on a temporary basis? In situations where there does need to be continuous ongoing financial support, the usual starting point is for that financial support to be a temporary measure, paid out of surplus income, and for the request to be made at the earliest opportunity so negotiations can take place well before the need for court action.
A recently reported case from the Family Court highlights this all too well and shows the consequences of parties not dealing with such claims early enough. This is the case of DSD v MJW (Costs of MPS) [2025] EWFC 119 (B)
In this case the wife (W) was 40 years old and the husband (H) was age 44. They have two children aged 7 and 8 and the children were spending time with each parent so each spouse had similar housing and income needs in relation to them. Their marriage lasted 14 years. The financial proceedings first began in January 2024. The first court hearing took place in June 2024 and the second hearing was in December. Unfortunately, the parties were unable to agree mutually acceptable terms of settlement and so a final hearing has been listed for July 2025.
W made an application in March 2025 asking the court to determine how much H should pay on an interim basis towards her basic monthly needs. This is known as Maintenance Pending Suit. W was seeking £500 pcm from H and a separate hearing for this application was heard in April 2025.
W’s income was recorded at £38,000 pa and she was living in subsidised rented accommodation costing £3,000 pa. H’s finances were uncertain, but he put forward a case of £39,000 pa net with housing costs of about £20,000, leaving him with about £1,500 pcm. H argued W had sufficient funds, at least until the final hearing set for July 2025. In terms of costs, the parties’ estimated costs to trial were £65,000 for W and £30,000 for H, a total of £95,000, plus an additional c.£13,000 for the MPS application (W £8,716 and H £4,170).
At the Maintenance Pending Suit (MPS) hearing, the first point noted by the judge was the level of costs. These were almost ten times what W was seeking H to pay her. The judge asked the not unreasonable question – “how can that ever be?”. The judge also noted that the legal fees W had incurred for the barrister representing her at the hearing was also more than what was recoverable. The judge felt that the question of MPS should have been raised and an application made long ago, not three months before the final hearing. He was also critical of both W, H and their legal team in not finding a more creative solution to the issue of maintenance rather than resorting to a MPS application. In this particular case, the net proceeds of sale of a property (over £700,000) were sitting in the conveyancing solicitor’s client account awaiting determination at the final hearing. The judge queried why there had not been a proposal that each party had say £2,000 paid out or even a little more. This would have saved £13,000 in legal fees for the MPS hearing.
The judge presiding over the case did helpfully set out details of situations where an MPS application should be made, none of which were applicable to the facts of this particular case. The scenarios given by the judge were:
1) the applicant was about to lose their accommodation or their job and therefore there was about to be a dramatic fall in the standard of living,
2) there was a refusal by one party to provide financial support for a vulnerable party.
3) there had been subsequent disclosure of assets justifying higher provision.
In this case W’s case was that she ‘could’ lose her accommodation but there was no evidence that it was ‘likely’ that she would. The use of the word ‘could’ lead the judge to conclude that the application was on shaky territory. The judge did acknowledge there was possible argument regarding H’s financial conduct but on balance, the law required the court to take a broadbrush approach and where there was potentially unreliable disclosure by the paying party, the benefit of the doubt should be given to the party in need but there was no obligation to undertake exhaustive disclosure analysis.
The key message to take away from this case is that if one spouse is looking for the other to help maintain or support basic monthly needs by paying an interim sum on a temporary basis, discussions and negotiations around this need to begin at the earliest opportunity. Creative ways should be explored not only on how to negotiate, but also as to the assets available that could be utilised to meet basic monthly needs.
At Kerseys Solicitors, our family law team of experienced solicitors strive to find the best possible solution without the need to involve the court in formal proceedings.
Contact our family law team today to find out more and book your initial fixed fee priced consultation.
Kerseys Solicitors in Ipswich at [email protected] or telephone 01473 213311.
Kerseys Solicitors in Felixstowe at [email protected] or telephone 01394 834557.
Kerseys Solicitors in Woodbridge at [email protected] or telephone 01394 813732.
Kerseys Solicitors in Colchester at [email protected] or telephone 01206 584584.
