please help respouse maintanence

my husband put in for divorce today, hes been advised to take his name off billsand joint accounts. Hes got his own business which makes 40k a yr, we have 2 kids, i dont work and at uni. He reckons hes only going to pay me the mortgage which is 280 pm, this is nstead of csa, and he reckons his solicitor said i should go on jobeekers and i wot get spouse maintanence. isthis the case?, how can he put us on dole if he minted pleae please help

Sharon,

Don't let the tough talk from your husband or his solicitor worry you.

UK family law is very very supportive of the person who cares for the children.

On 40k a year he will be taking home perhaps 2500 per month.
He should be supporting you and the kids with that income.

The child support alone is 20% of net so 500 per month.

Unless your marriage was very short then I don't see why you shouldn't have a claim for spousal maintenance and that could take his payments to you up to 30% to 40% of his net monthly income.

You really need to get some legal advice and so I would strongly recommend arranging for a free initial 1/2 hour chat with a local solicitor.

You should consider asking the solicitor whether you should put in an immediate claim for interim spousal maintenance.

the marriage was 8 and half yrs, so no, not a shot marriage. Ive had a free consultation with a solicitor, hes advised contacting the csa and advised to go for interim maintanence.

Ive spoken to child tax and income support, from sounds of things it would not be beneficial to myself to claim income support as i would not recieve the csa, also, because i am a student at uni, they will take my studen loan into account. Child ta credits inform me that they would not takin into account any csa or souse maintance, si this sounds like my best option. I refuse to go on benefit when me and my children have been used to a good quality of life.

Sharon,

You seem to be starting to work things out and heading in the right direction.

With a combination of: child tax credits, child support payments and spousal maintenance you should be OK.

We're glad we could help.

Let us know if you need anything else.

best regards

wikivorce team

thanks for your help, i dont know what i would have done without this site, things are starting to look better. Just found out i can claim more things from local education authority, such as parents learning allownace, which i wasnt entitled to before. Just really worried now that interim spouse maintainence and csa will take ages and have no money coming in only 81 child tax and 30 child benefit. From how its looking, i shouldnt be living in poverty and should be able to maintain the same standard of living once its all sorted out. Thanks for your help.

ps could you ell me if form E is the form for interim spouse maintainance, solictor gave it me before.

Sharon,

I understand you husband has started the divorce, but i assume he has not started ancillary relief proceedings.

So your first step is to apply for ancillary relief (this is the process that will determine the final spousal maintenance amount you will get).

You do this using Form A.

Then once the court has accepted this application you immediately apply for interim spousal maintenance. You need to contact the court to find out how to do this.

There is a court leaflet (D198) explaining all of the above in our Divorce Guide under "Court Forms and information leaflets" half way down the page under the heading "Ancillary relief".

You can use the HMCS website (see front page of our Top Divorce Sites section) to find the address/phone nbr of your local court.

no ive not heard ancillary relief mentioned. What is form E then? and what is it for, ive been given this to fill in with a legal aid form