another spousal maintenance question!

I have been receiving Court ordered spousal maintenance for ten years now.

It was originally ordered as there was no pension sharing order(pre 2003) and no equity to house me and the 4 children, hence I had a sizable mortgage committment.

My ex has written today to say that he has decided to work half time as from January 2013 (to avoid burnout!) so in order to continue to pay CM (court ordered to include Uni) he wants to substantially reduce/get rid of SM.

He has a well paid, self employed partnership(100k+) and has other earnings from committees that he sits on. He has a massive mortgage, horses, fast cars and a plane!

I presume that he cannot unilaterally reduce payments without recourse to the Court or have the original order revoked in favour of a Consent Order.

He applied to the Court 3 years ago to have the SM reduced but this was declined as circumstances had not changed, I acted as LIP. Neither the CM or SM has ever been changed since 2002.

Any advice would be much appreciated

x

I think you will need legal advice for this one. If he has enough resources one way of getting rid of SM would be to capitalise. You would then have a lump sum to invest which along with the interest would provide income.