Joint Lives maintenance

Hi,

Can anyonehelp me on joing lives maintenance?

My situation is I have been seperated from my wife for 3 years now and have been divorced since January of this year.

My ex wife is 34 and our children are 7 and 4 (almost). my ex has always worked either full time or self employed. At the time of us seperating she was a self employed childrens toy seller.

I believe at present she currently works part time, although I am not certain of this, but this was done so it did not effect her child support etc.

All of out assets have been sorted, the house was sold, but the equity was used to pay off loans secured against the house and in fact I had to pay an additional 5k to enable the sale to go through.

All of the household assets I left to my ex.

I already pay child maintenance and up until today she has never mentioned joint lives maintenance.

I lost my job at the end of last year and was a good job paying over 60k per year, but most of that was tied up in debt from our marraige. I am now a self employed consultant but as the business is still new I am invoicing £1,200 per month, so that is in effect my salary! my partner lives with me and she contributes half of the household costs, around £750 each, so by time the maintenancec comes out and the credit cards bill I am still paying from our marriage, fuel and shopping I am left with around £50 spare a month.

In my opinion my wife can work far more than she does, I work from home, so I have offered t ohavet he children more than I currently do to allow her to work etc, but this is always dismissed out of hand. I live 5 minutes away from my children.

What do judges take into consideraton when making these judgements? and is there apercentage of salary that they use, or is it depending on the current financial situation.

Any help of this would be greatly appriciated and please feel free to ask if you need anymore information

Hi and welcome to wiki.

Spousal maintenance will be based on the needs of one party and the ability to pay of the other.

How is your ex and the children housed?

What is the difference between your income and that of your ex (including any benefits eg WTC and CB and CM)

You may find this thread useful

www.wikivorce.com/divorce/Divorce-Advice...sal-Maintenance.html

Hi and thank you for replying.

She currently rents a three bedroom house, which I believe is owned by her father.

I offered her to stay in the family home, but she wanted it sold and our debt cleared so we done that, altohugh didnt clear all of them.

With regards to salaries I have my ex''s form E and she says her annual salary with wages and benifits is 21.5k, plus at present I pay £100 per month maintenance.

My salary is currently 15k per annum, which is obviosuly low, but I have just started a business so will take time to build up etc

I am pretty certain a court would take the situation as it is now, not what the future might hold so dont think she will have much of a case for sm as she receives a higher income than you.

Sm is paid by the higher earner to the lower earner and has nothing to do with the children.

Yes I just read that on another post on here. She doesnt currently know my income situation she thinks I have a pot of gold stashed away somewhere, which I most certainly dont.

Will they rule no case, of give this minimal £1 so that an increase can be given later etc.

Thank you so much for your help though

A court may well order a nominal amount to be paid but your stbx would have to prove to a court that her situation has deteriorated and that you can make up the shortfall.