Ex wives/maintenance

Silver_123

Hi, this is probably the wrong forum, I'm sorry, but perhaps it can be re-directed. I married a dutchman who had divorced his dutch wife and had 2 children. Along with their divorce they made a contract to say he pays 'X' amount of euros in maintenance, and for 8 years he has never missed a payment, however last June he lost his job, and only could claim JSA of £65 a week. I work part time. Anyway, things have got quite nasty between him and ex, and she is suing him for breach of contract, there is no where in this contract that says if he loses his job and can't pay, it says he is liabel every month until the kids are 18. She says she will take us to court and force us to sell our house. At the moment, our mortgage is being paid by our insurance. He has NEVER missed a payment, and since December last year, JSA was stopped, so it is only my income coming in now, which is less than £200 a week plus child tax credits as I have a child - not his. So, do you think she can force us to sell our house? He says he believes she can. If I had known this, I would never have married him, knowing she can have such a hold over me too. Thank you and apologies if I'm in the wrong forum!

smartpicture

You need to start a thread on the Child Support forum under the Benefits forum. However, I'm sure they will tell you that you need a Dutch lawyer to work out your position. In the UK, your payments could usually be amended when his income changes so drastically, but I don't know what the situation is in the Netherlands. It does however seem very unlikely that he would be forced to sell his house if that would result in another child becoming homeless, so don't panic.

clearingout

you can't just ignore these things and hope they will go away. If your financial situation changes, you need to make an application to the courts to have your 'liablity' reduced. Otherwise, it's just willful non -payment which can be enforced using the courts. Obviously, I'm talking from a UK perspective but it's hard to imagine that it's significantly different in the Netherlands.

RadoJo

Unfortunately, your husband losing his job doesn't mean that his children cost any less to raise - I agree with the advice above about trying to apply to amend the order to cover this period, but I don't think it's going to be a case of just saying 'I can't pay' and that being the end of it.

From your thread title, you seem to be thinking about it in terms of paying his ex-wife, whereas presumably the maintenance is actually for the care and upkeep of his children - if you put yourself in her shoes it might be a little easier to see her point. For all she knows, he is deliberately staying out of work, allowing you to 'keep' him and not really motivated to find work and restart the payments - I'm not suggesting this is the case, but it does happen and she may worry that this is true in this case.

Although I can see that this puts you in an awful position, I think you need to take the bull by the horns and put a proper plan in place to find a compromise - she can't get blood out of a stone, and I'm sure she doesn't really want to force you to sell the house, but at the same time, if she is losing out on money she has come to rely on, and your husband isn't able to give her any idea when he might be able to restart the payments, then I can understand why she might be panicking and making empty threats just to force some kind of response.

themull1

Are you both on the mortgage? don't think they can force you to sell if its joint.

Caroline73_2

fifi_browne wrote: »

Hi, this is probably the wrong forum, I'm sorry, but perhaps it can be re-directed. I married a dutchman who had divorced his dutch wife and had 2 children. Along with their divorce they made a contract to say he pays 'X' amount of euros in maintenance, and for 8 years he has never missed a payment, however last June he lost his job, and only could claim JSA of £65 a week. I work part time. Anyway, things have got quite nasty between him and ex, and she is suing him for breach of contract, there is no where in this contract that says if he loses his job and can't pay, it says he is liabel every month until the kids are 18. She says she will take us to court and force us to sell our house. At the moment, our mortgage is being paid by our insurance. He has NEVER missed a payment, and since December last year, JSA was stopped, so it is only my income coming in now, which is less than £200 a week plus child tax credits as I have a child - not his. So, do you think she can force us to sell our house? He says he believes she can. If I had known this, I would never have married him, knowing she can have such a hold over me too. Thank you and apologies if I'm in the wrong forum!

Your husband is probably feeling massively guilty that he cannot afford to pay for HIS CHILDREN at the moment, his ex is possibly now in financial difficulty now.

You think the best way to support him is to say that you would never had married him if you would have known the system. If that was the case you should have investigated the system for potential ways it could have affected you.

Silver_123

Yes we are both on the mortgage.

And of course I realise she might think he is hiding behind me, but his lack of income has caused us quite some problems too, and I can understand she might feel he is doing that, I might feel the same so I do understand.

On balance......maybe I should have stayed single!