The court has power to make various orders in respect of the matrimonial finances. The type of orders made involve the court in a difficult balancing exercise in an attempt to formulate a reasonable division having regard to the criteria in Section 25 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973. The types of orders the court can make are as follows:
PERIODICAL PAYMENTS
This is also known as a maintenance order and requires one party, typically but not necessarily the husband, to pay a regular sum of money to the other. The court no longer has any power in respect of child maintenance where the payment is made to or for the benefit of a child of the family. If a party with whom the children are living wants maintenance, he or she will have to apply to the Child Support Agency who deal with assessment and collection or payment under their own powers and rules.
This type of order is now less popular than it was. The court must, in all cases, look at whether a clean break is possible and, if it is not, whether maintenance can be limited to a period within which the party receiving it can get to a stage of self sufficiency by earning his or her own income. Such an order might be appropriate where there are young children and the wife cannot earn enough to support herself whilst looking after them. Care will be taken to ensure that, if the wife is in receipt of benefits such as income support the maintenance will not disqualify her from such benefits. This is less of a problem where the husband is well paid. Where he has only a modest income, periodical payments to the wife would stop her from claiming benefit and neither party could survive, the court would inevitably think about giving the wife more capital to reflect her entitlement. In this way the husband would be let off any maintenance liability to her and would instead take less of the value in the house or other capital in order to achieve a clean break.
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