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- The judge had allowed the husband's appeal from a maintenance pending suit order, principally on the basis that the the deputy district judge had "failed to apply the law appropriately" and had not undertaken any "critical analysis of the wife's needs". The wife now appealed against that decision. In Moylan LJ's view, the deputy district judge had undertaken a sufficient analysis of the relevant factors to support her decision, including the wife's listed needs and likely income, and the husband's budget. She had been entitled to include the amount sought for school fees, and had reached a fair decision as to what level of maintenance would be reasonable. In those circumstances, there was no basis on which the judge could properly interfere with the decision. Asplin and Macur LJJ agreed. The appeal would be allowed, with the judge's order being set aside, including the costs order. The maintenance pending suit order made by the deputy district judge would be restored, save for a paragraph dealing with the mortgage. Judgment, 22/01/2021, free
- The case concerned child support for a child born in 1989. Although the child had been living with the father by 2005, arrears had accumulated before then, for which the father was now being pursued. A regular deduction order (RDO) had been made in the sum of £150.26 per week, against which the father sought permission to appeal, albeit later than allowed under the rules. HHJ Mark Rogers granted relief from sanctions, saying that it was important for this case to be resolved on its merits rather than as a result of a procedural default. Permission to appeal was also granted. He found that the rigorous test laid out in s 41E of the Child Support Act 1991 had not been satisfied: the arrears had not been extinguished and were capable of recovery. But in his view, no attention had been paid to the impact of relevant events in 2007, including an apparent declaration that the mother had withdrawn her authority for the arrears to be collected. The appeal was allowed. Making a new decision, he found that the points against making an RDO substantially outweighed those in favour, and so he declined to make one. Judgment, 22/01/2021, free
- The husband and wife had been engaged in highly acrimonious and litigious financial remedy proceedings since late 2019. This hearing concerned the husband's application for the wife to pay, on an indemnity basis, his costs of a preliminary issue regarding the beneficial ownership of five ships and whether the couple were indebted to the second to sixth respondents. The latter issue had been settled following a payment from those respondents to the wife. Lieven J stated that the wife's conduct had been "fairly extraordinary". She had alleged a conspiracy to defraud her of millions of pounds of matrimonial assets, and then decided not to pursue those allegations, having already put the husband to enormous expense and depriving him of the chance to clear his name. It was a basic principle, said Lieven J, that fraud should not be pleaded without sufficient evidence. Where a party pleaded fraud, and then withdrew that claim, the argument that they should pay the other party's costs was even stronger than in the withdrawal of other types of claim. The wife would pay the husband's costs of and occasioned by the preliminary issues on an indemnity basis. Judgment, 15/01/2021, free
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Calculating ‘reasonable’ and ‘immediate’ needs in MPS applications: Rattan v Kuwad [2021] EWCA Civ 1The Court of Appeal considered how a court should assess reasonable and immediate needs when faced with an application for maintenance pending suit. News, 14/01/2021, free
- Live webinar to be broadcast 1pm-2pm, Tuesday 2nd February 2021. News, 11/01/2021, free
- The child arrangements order being appealed by the mother had been made by consent at the FHDRA, and had provided for the three children to live with her and spend time with the father. No reasons were given by the magistrates, and there were no references in the order to allegations of domestic abuse, safeguarding checks or to Practice Direction 12J – Child Arrangements and Contact Orders: Domestic Abuse and Harm, Family Procedure Rules 2010. The mother's grounds of appeal also asserted that a report supporting the terms of the order had been made without observing the father with the children and without the author having given proper consideration to the allegations of domestic violence. HHJ Cove found that the magistrates' decision was plainly wrong. No reasons had been given, the court had not had regard to PD 12J, the safeguarding checks were incomplete, and there had been no analysis of whether the consent order should be made nor of the risk of harm to the children. The order was set aside. Judgment, 18/12/2020, free
- Live webinar to be broadcast 1pm-2pm, on Tuesday 12th January 2021. News, 18/12/2020, free
- An executor, the younger brother of the deceased, had appealed against an order for him to exhibit on oath a true and perfect inventory of the estate and an account of its administration. The respondents to the appeal were the deceased's widow and three children from his first marriage. The appeal was dismissed, and in this judgment MacDonald J dealt with whether those costs should be assessed on the standard or the indemnity basis, and the quantum of the costs. He decided that the executor should pay the costs of the respondents on an indemnity basis in the sum of £27,818.92 plus VAT. After delaying for over a decade, the executor had put the respondents to further expense, delay and inconvenience by requiring them to meet an appeal of dubious merit. This was a clear case for the awarding of costs on an indemnity basis. Judgment, 16/12/2020, free
- The husband appealed from a case management order made in financial remedy proceedings. The parties had separated in 2016, after 29 years of marriage. It was accepted on both sides that their assets had been built up during the marriage. There had been negotiations but the wife did not consider herself bound by the agreement. The judge below had found that an abbreviated process was not appropriate, since the significance of the agreement would require detailed analysis, and he ordered further case management. On appeal, the husband argued that the judge had erred in refusing to set down his show cause application for hearing, and in making case management decisions that would have been unnecessary if the show cause application had been successful. The wife argued that the judge's order had been within his discretion. Theis J dismissed the appeal on all grounds, rejecting any suggestion that the judge had been wrong or erred in law. He had been entitled to make the order that he made, for the reasons he set out. Such cases were fact specific, and there was no inflexible rule as to how the proceedings should be conducted. She urged the parties to negotiate, to bring them certainty and finality, and to reduce the impact of increasing legal costs. Judgment, 16/12/2020, free
- An application by the former husband for permission to appeal out of time against the order for him to pay to the wife a lump sum of £3.09m, as well as periodical payments of £4,750 per calendar month and other amounts. The husband argued that he could not afford to meet the terms of the order, and that the judge had taken half the value of the husband’s shareholdings in two private companies with no evidence-based indication as to how the husband would be able to raise the required lump sum. The wife's position was that the appeal was not just out of time, but hopelessly so, and that the evidence at trial had indicated that the husband had been planning to sell his business interests in order to satisfy the lump sum payment, rather than relying upon dividends. In Mr Recorder Salter's judgment, the delay here was "serious and lacking in any good explanation". He had no hesitation in reaching the conclusion that he was unable to grant relief from sanctions and that accordingly the application for permission to appeal had to be dismissed. Judgment, 21/11/2020, free