Consent order

bellrooster

Morning all
My partner signed a consent order approximately 3 years ago when he separated from his wife.

The consent order is heavily biased towards his ex wife, she ended up with a much larger share of the assets and her pension pot is a lot larger my partners.  The consent order didn't go before a judge to be signed and 'sealed' so how valid is beyond being a contract?  

After reading a little bit about consent orders, I think it wasn't presented to a judge to be signed at the time because it wouldn't be seen as being fair. 
My partner also feels he signed in the first place under duress. His ex was quite threatening verbally but he has no evidence of this. 

In the contract my partner said he would pay maintenance for his children until they leave full time education. One of his children is struggling financially at university at the moment so my partner wants to divert the money he pays for her to her directly as her mum doesn't help her financially at all. (Despite being in receipt of partners money which is for this purpose) would this be in be in breach of contract? If the maintenance is for the benefit of the children then I believe adult children should be in receipt of the money.

TBagpuss

Your partner needs to speak to a solicitor.

If you are correct and there was no formal order, then your partner can (assuming you and he are not married) apply to the court for a financial settlement. The court has to then decide what is fair including taking into account any prior agreements, at which point he draft / informal order will be relevant, as will things such as what disclosure was provided when they signed it, whether he had legal advice or was advised to get it, how far each of them has relied on the agreement etc. 

If he started making payments direct to his adult child instead of to their mother then mum's option would be to apply to a court, for a financial order, but if the rest of the agreement was beneficial to her she might well be reluctant to do that. 

However, his best bet is to speak to a solicitor and also to consider what he wants - is he happy to leave the rest of the deal as it is, if he can adjust the payment for the children? Or is he looking to clam a share of the pension? 
If he is happy to leave the rest as it is then he might find his best bet is to offer to have the order formally submitted to the court but amended to remove the references to child support once they reach the ed of secondary education, and he can then support each child how he wishes fter that point.