Global maintenance order after remarriage

Hi

My ex and I completed our divorce just over 3 years ago.

The result was a global maintenance order stating that I pay £1800 per month until Oct 2020 (at which point the youngest child is in high school), after which the order ends and my monthly payment will be assessed by the CSA.

I represented myself in court, and perhaps my inexperience went against me here. There is no mention of remarriage as a trigger to end this order. That said, my ex and I have both since remarried, and I now have 2 children with my new wife. I have read a lot of articles online which state that remarriage is an automatic trigger to end spousal maintenance, however I'm not sure if this applies in my case.

Is anyone able to enlighten me? Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Regards
Chris

Hmm. You could make an application to the CMS for child maintenance to be assessed (or look at www.gov.uk/calculate-your-child-maintenance for guidance). Bear in mind that your CM liability would take into account all children that you are responsible for.

If your ex has remarried, it would not seem to me to be unreasonable for you to apply to the courts for a variation (i.e. to end the spousal maintenance element).

Hadenoughnow

Thanks

I've been reading a little more, and it looks to me as though a global maintenance order is only applicable where there is a significant element of spousal maintenance.

Given that this should end automatically on remarriage, I think this would also make the global maintenance order not justifiable.

More research required, but I think this looks promising.

Thanks!

It is usual for an order to end on the death, remarriage or cohabitation for a period of 6 months or more of the recipient.

However, it sounds as though there is no provision in the order which means it will have to be varied. This is potentially an expensive process.

The first port of call is to ask the recipient if they are amenable to ending/varying the order. Whilst an agreement seems unlikely there is no harm in asking before taking action.

After that, I would get legal advice. There are risks or launching and losing an action as you will have to bear your own costs and probably those of the other party.

Charles