Spousal &
Child Maintenance

There is no formula. Unlike child maintenance, spousal maintenance is worked out from real numbers: what each of you needs to live on each month, and what the paying person can afford after meeting their own reasonable costs. So the starting point is two household budgets side by side.

The court looks at the standard of living during the marriage, the length of the marriage, the ages and health of both of you, earning capacity now and in the future, and the needs of any children. Because there is no formula, this is one of the areas where mediation works particularly well, since you can build the figure together from budgets you both accept rather than each arguing for a number from opposite ends.

For as long as you both agree, or as long as a court orders, and the modern approach favours terms that end. Common arrangements are a fixed number of years, until the youngest child finishes education, or until the paying person retires. A joint lives order, which runs until one of you dies, is now rare and usually reserved for long marriages where the receiving person has no realistic prospect of becoming financially independent.

Courts are expected to consider whether a term can be set without causing undue hardship, so the question in most cases is not whether maintenance ends but when, and whether the end date can be extended.

They are separate things, and one does not replace the other. Child maintenance is for the children’s day to day costs and is worked out from the paying parent’s income. Spousal maintenance is about supporting an ex-spouse who cannot meet their own needs from their own income. Many settlements involve child maintenance only, particularly where both people work and there is enough capital to rehouse them both.

In practice the two are looked at together, because what is affordable overall is the same pot of money, and agreeing them in the same conversation usually produces a more workable result than dealing with them separately.

Most people start with the Child Maintenance Service calculation, even when they intend to agree privately, because it gives you both a neutral reference point. It is based on the paying parent’s gross income, the number of children, and how many nights a year the children stay overnight with them, with reductions for other children they support.

You can also run it yourself using the calculator on gov.uk. What you then agree between you can be the same figure, or more, or structured differently, for example a lower monthly amount with the paying parent covering school fees or clubs directly.

Yes, and most separated parents do. A private arrangement, sometimes called a family based arrangement, costs nothing, can be more flexible than the formula, and avoids the fees and the involvement of a third party. It is not legally enforceable in the same way, so it relies on both of you sticking to it. If it stops working, either of you can apply to the Child Maintenance Service at any point. Agreeing it in mediation gives you the best of both: a figure you have both worked out and understood, written up properly, with a review date built in.

A clean break ends all financial claims between you, so neither of you can make a claim against the other’s income, capital or pension in future. You cannot have a full clean break while spousal maintenance is being paid, because the income claim is still live. What you can have is a deferred clean break, where maintenance runs for an agreed period and the claims end when it does, or a capital clean break with maintenance continuing, which ends the claims on capital and pensions but leaves the income claim open for the agreed term.

Child maintenance sits outside all of this and cannot be ended by a clean break but does not stop you getting a clean break order.

Usually when your child turns 16, or potentially up to when they turn 20 if they stay in approved full-time education up to A level or equivalent. Child maintenance and spousal maintenance stop on different triggers, which is one reason it is worth writing both down clearly rather than agreeing a single household figure.

Yes. Unlike a capital settlement, a maintenance order can be varied if circumstances change materially, for example a job loss, a significant pay rise, retirement, or the receiving person starting to cohabit. Either of you can apply, and most couples find it far quicker to come back to mediation for a single session and agree a new figure than to make a court application. Building a review date into the original agreement makes that conversation much easier when it comes.

Disclosure in mediation is open, and it has to be backed by documents rather than figures on a form. That means bank statements, payslips, mortgage statements, company accounts and pension valuations. You can ask any questions on each other’s disclosure. If the information still does not come, mediation can stop and you can apply to court, which has powers to compel disclosure. It is also worth knowing that a financial order obtained through dishonest disclosure can be set aside by a court years later, so hiding assets rarely holds. Either party can request disclosure on a Form E, where you both sign a statement of truth.

Yes. In England and Wales, your divorce ends the marriage but it does not end your financial claims against each other. Those claims stay open until a judge approves a financial order that formally dismisses them, and there is no time limit for bringing one. In Wyatt v Vince, an ex-wife applied around 20 years later and the Supreme Court allowed her claim to proceed.

If you remarry you will have a reduced claim on the assets and spousal maintenance. It is worth taking good legal advice if this is your situation.