What counts as Spousal Maintenance payment?

Beki88 · 13 February 2018 at 6:40PM

WhenIam64 wrote: »

It could be construed as a contractual obligation based on "consensus ad idem". Some contracts are court ordered but there is no need for a court if there is an agreement. Is the agreement documented**?

** Regular payments into a bank account is also evidence of an agreement even if it is not documented.

Nothing documented as such other than the payments. He sends as a whole payment which includes maintenance for the children as well. He did used to break the payments up but it was easier to just send as one payment.
I did seek legal advice ( the free half an hour) regarding getting it documented as a clean break, which they advised a judge would have to be satisfied with the current agreement but I could not afford the fees so we just stuck with the verbal agreement.

WhenIam64 · 13 February 2018 at 7:09PM

You appear to be most of the way there apart from some documentation. Would your ex be willing to commit to some form of documentation - if only for the purposes of showing the UC office.

Going through the steps.

Your ex has a common law duty to pay reasonable maintenance for you as a transition to being independent. Whatever is paid may be more than reasonable (which is not defined but there will be guidance out there) but it cannot be less than you are due. If it is you need to go to court - but not advisable unless you happen to be a WAG

Documented is better than non-documented and you can both draft up an agreement to suit with whatever caveats / time limitations you both agree - subject to the comment above about it being less than you are due.

UC will as they always are, restricted to definitions of what SM is and you should ask them and explain your current set up.

An additional point that you might not have considered is that the amounts can be capitalised as a one-off payment essentially buying out the liability/duty your ex has. This may be a different way around your specific issues / circumstances.

So the people who have the answers are your ex and UC.

pmlindyloo · 13 February 2018 at 11:55PM

Beki88 wrote: »

Hi, just wondered if anyone could clarify this situation for me.

Have been separated from Husband for just over two years, currently not divorced.

He pays half towards the following:
Mortgage
Two loans (taken out to improve property)
Buildings insurance
Income insurance
Personal insurance

They all come out of my account which is why he sends me half of the money. The plan is once I am financially able to I will take over the payments for everything, other than the income and personal insurance which we will then take out our own single policies.

This is not a court order, but an agreement between the two of us as he is a higher earner and I had to leave my job when he left.

Would this be counted as spousal maintenance or not?

I am moving on to Universal Credits at some point and I would like to know whether it is likely to be considered spousal maintenance as I understand they take that into account when looking at income.

Many thanks in advance.

I am wondering whether the liability for the payments would make a difference.

So, is it a joint mortgage and in whose name(s) are the other payments ?

I think if it can be shown that he has liability for the payments then it wouldn't be counted as spousal maintenance.

The fact that the money goes directly into your account may be a problem. If he has liability for any of the payments then he should be paying these directly.

Beki88 · 14 February 2018 at 2:25AM

pmlindyloo wrote: »

I am wondering whether the liability for the payments would make a difference.

So, is it a joint mortgage and in whose name(s) are the other payments ?

I think if it can be shown that he has liability for the payments then it wouldn't be counted as spousal maintenance.

The fact that the money goes directly into your account may be a problem. If he has liability for any of the payments then he should be paying these directly.

Joint mortgage both names on it. Out of the two loans one was in joint names, the other was just in my name but taken out whilst together for the house, he’s due to stop paying around July time for that.
The life and income insurance was a dual policy in both our names. The buildings insurance was just in my name I think it is due for renewal in a couple of months so can’t remember for certain. They wouldn’t allow it from two bank accounts which is why it was left just coming out of mine as that’s how it’s always been set up.

huckster · 14 February 2018 at 7:00AM

pmlindyloo wrote: »

I am wondering whether the liability for the payments would make a difference.

So, is it a joint mortgage and in whose name(s) are the other payments ?

I think if it can be shown that he has liability for the payments then it wouldn't be counted as spousal maintenance.

The fact that the money goes directly into your account may be a problem. If he has liability for any of the payments then he should be paying these directly.

I don't know about this specific issue, but the elephant in the room, is "i will be moving to Universal Credit at some point"

Well by the time you move at some point in the future rules may be changed or your circumstances might change, so it depends on when the move to UC is likely to happen.

The managed migration is happening between 2019 and 2022.

And the other question is what is your current position e.g disability affecting what work you can do, whether you have childcare responsibilities, children with disabilities etc etc etc.

If you go to any advisor at CAB or elsewhere, they will need to go through every aspect of your life position to understand what benefits you might have entitlement to, what hurdles you would need to cross etc.

Perhaps register with a benefits calculator such as Turn2us or Entitledto and take a look at the information required to calculate entitlement. It might help you raise questions which you can get answered at some point.

Why did you have to leave your job when your husband left you?

pmlindyloo · 14 February 2018 at 9:37AM

Beki88 wrote: »

Joint mortgage both names on it. Out of the two loans one was in joint names, the other was just in my name but taken out whilst together for the house, he’s due to stop paying around July time for that.
The life and income insurance was a dual policy in both our names. The buildings insurance was just in my name I think it is due for renewal in a couple of months so can’t remember for certain. They wouldn’t allow it from two bank accounts which is why it was left just coming out of mine as that’s how it’s always been set up.

The simple answer is for him to pay these 'bills' directly from his bank account and you to reimburse him from yours. The child maintenance can be put into your bank account as child maintenance is not seen as income for UC.

Yes, this may be a pain but can be easily sorted. Just a case of knowing how much is his liability and you giving him this amount. If he wishes to pay something that he has no liability for then include it in the child maintenance.

Beki88 · 14 February 2018 at 5:14PM

huckster wrote: »

I don't know about this specific issue, but the elephant in the room, is "i will be moving to Universal Credit at some point"

And the other question is what is your current position e.g disability affecting what work you can do, whether you have childcare responsibilities, children with disabilities etc etc etc.

Perhaps register with a benefits calculator such as Turn2us or Entitledto and take a look at the information required to calculate entitlement.

Why did you have to leave your job when your husband left you?

Thank you for replying.
"At some point" is going to be pretty soon just unsure of the exact date. My new partner moved in Friday so I ended my claim with income support, tax credits etc. I finally managed to complete the UC form Monday and verified identity on Tuesday (yesterday). At that point it said if I am entitled I will be paid in 40 something days, that has now changed to 30 something days.

My circumstances are I have CFS/ME which limits what work I can do (I do not claim benefits for this as I had enough stress trying to cope with the separation and him cheating), but also I have two children (aged 13 & 8. They were 11 and 5 when he left), my eldest is in receipt of high rate care DLA which entitles me to carers allowance. My new partner does work full time. My eldest is not biologically his child however he does have parental responsibilities for him which was arranged through all the correct paperwork.

The above is the reason why I had to leave work. I was only part time as it was all I could manage whilst my ex worked full time. That allowed me to still manage to care for my son without making myself too ill. When my ex left I was unable to manage all caring responsibilities (house, children and myself) and work as well. So obviously the job had to stop.

This was the reason why he still paid half the mortgage as he knew without him paying I would not be able to afford it on my own. Once the payments for the loans finish (2019 and 2020) that money I would no longer be spending would then be able to pay for the mortgage although I was unsure when he would be able to actually remove his name from it.
Due to it being a council house we can not sell the house yet as per the stipulations of buying it otherwise we have to repay the council the same % of discount based on the valuation which would leave a large deficit and make it so I would be unable to purchase another property. When he left I also had to use some of the loan money to support myself and the children financially as for several months he did not provide any financial support, so he decided that I should pay for the money I spent myself, due to this he will actually stop paying one of the loans later this year so the money he sends me each month will go down.

During my free consultation with the solicitor I was advised that I could seek financial support longer term due to my health and my sons, however it was not something I wished to pursue, and I stated I only wanted him to pay what he was liable for until I was in a better position to take full control of the mortgage. I am still not fully in that position yet, and due to my new partners poor credit rating I can not put him on the mortgage nor would I purely to avoid being in this same position again should anything go wrong.

I did look on entitledto but it did not seem to take everything into consideration from my circumstances so I got more of a general "quote".

My new partner is not on the best of wages (slightly above NMW), and from the calculations it looks as we will already be worse off on UC than we would have been on TC however we are in an area where they no longer accept claims for legacy benefits when a change of circs happen so the last thing I want is to end up in a position where I can not afford to keep the house or pay off the debts etc however I am keen to stay "legal" by declaring him as living with me, which I have done. I just feel like I'm getting the bad end of the deal if that makes sense.

Sorry for such a long post I am just worried sick about it all.

Beki88 · 9 April 2018 at 11:26PM

Just thought I would post an update on this in case anyone else looks.
After being assured by the person I had my interview with at the local job centre that it would definitely not count as maintenance, my first payment was set to be reduced as someone decided it would.

I then arranged with the mortgage and loan companies for myself and my ex to pay via standing order separately. They were not keen on the idea as they prefer to have a direct debit which means they are in control but we got it done in the end. I contacted my case handler who then arranged for the reduction to be cancelled as I was no longer in receipt of said "income".

Fast forward two weeks after receiving our first payment I have had 2 messages telling me that a decision maker is looking into my case. I don't know whether that is to decide if it is or isn't income - in any case no longer an issue for me personally now seen as separate payments have been arranged, or whether they are going to change the decision of last months award.

I argued my case that it was not spousal maintenance, but as far as they were concerned any money coming to me that was not for my children meant it was considered as spousal maintenance and therefore unearned income. So to anyone else in the same position please be aware of this, as it would have heavily reduced my monthly award, putting me at risk of not being able to pay my loan/mortgage and I would hate to see that happen to anyone. Hopefully I will have some more answers soon regarding the decision maker and a little more clarity on the situation.

Thanks to everyone who replied on this thread by the way

Danday · 9 April 2018 at 11:41PM

wrong thread

What counts as Spousal Maintenance payment?

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free