Maintenance Pending Suit

Hi,

I have applied for Maintenance Pending Suit from my estranged husband in the interim of the financial settlement of our divorce. I am asking that he pays a monthly amount of £6,415.63, broken down as follows:

£5,643.38 in spousal maintenance + child maintenance for our 2 children who live permanently full time with me; one of which is 18 year old who attends university

+

£772.35 – the cost of half of our younger son's school fees for the summer term of the 2023/2024 academic school year

I was wondering if this is a reasonable amount to ask for? My estranged husband earns £163,000 per year (tax free, as he lives in Abu Dhabi where they don't pay tax) in addition to £15,000 per year from renting out our former matrimonial home. He also has savings of about £8,000 and bank accounts where he regularly transfers money to (totalling £10,000).

I, on the other hand, earn £45,000, have no savings and have thousands of pounds of debt because he did not pay any child maintenance for 13 months, so I had to use credit cards and loans to supplement my income.

My estranged husband is currently paying £500 per month for our minor child and is offering to pay £1,200, however this does not meet our needs and he can afford so much more, considering he was paying £2,400 every month before stopping the child maintenance and reinstating it after 13 months at £500.

I was just wondering whether the Maintenance Pending Suit I am asking for is reasonable and what you think the likelihood will be that the court grants this order?

Thank you in advance.

It’s a very specific amount. Can you demonstrate a need for it.

Is your adult son making an application for himself?

This maintenance award would result in you having the benefit of 52.6% of the combined income of yourself and your ex-husband. It is an absurd amount to ask for. Both maintenance pending suit and spousal maintenance are based on the needs of the payee (and note these are needs to avoid undue hardship) and the ability of the payer. I think a claim this large would frankly be laughed out of court, especially as you already earn a good salary yourself.

I think a more realistic figure to aim for would be child maintenance based on the government calculation plus a small top up to reflect he earns in excess of the maximum that the CMS would consider (which is £156k a year). Something in the region of £1.2-1.5k would be reasonable as you only have one dependent child. And maybe the school fees.

Of course, you should also bear in mind he is in Abu Dhabi so even if the UK courts agree with your absurd figure, there's absolutely no way of enforcing the order. It's probably better to aim for something realistic rather than causing acrimony and getting nothings at all.

Duplicate - deleted.