The High Court granted a decree of divorce and ordered the respondent to pay the applicant €400 a week in maintenance, along with a €23,800 lump sum for arrears. The maintenance was to begin on 17 May 2013 and was not subject to consumer price index increases.
The court said the weekly payment would need to be reviewed substantially downwards when the applicant became entitled to the non-contributory old age pension on 13 April 2015. The parties could agree the revised amount; otherwise, the court would determine it.
The decision followed a divorce and ancillary relief application issued in August 2008. The parties had married in 1967 and separated in September 1988. Their 1989 separation agreement provided for weekly maintenance of £400, adjusted annually for inflation, and half of the respondent’s royalties. The respondent had paid €500 a week in maintenance until reducing it to €300 in February 2011. He had stopped royalty payments at the end of 2003.
The applicant sought enforcement of the agreement, including indexed maintenance and resumed royalty payments. She claimed the weekly maintenance should be €918.38, with €270,923.76 in arrears, and sought €77,212.67 in royalties from 2007. Those were her claims, not amounts awarded by the court.
The judge said it was inappropriate, so long after the agreement, to enforce its inflation-linked maintenance and royalty provisions. The applicant had acquiesced in the non-payment of increases and the end of royalty payments. The court found she had not acquiesced in the reduction from €500 to €300 a week, however, and held the respondent responsible for the resulting arrears from 1 February 2011. It calculated 119 weeks at €200 a week, totalling €23,800.
The court considered the respondent’s financial records and found no evidence that he was withholding vital financial information or had substantial undisclosed assets. It assessed his average gross income, including royalties, at €76,405 a year for 2008 to 2011, and said he had the capacity to pay €400 a week until he became eligible for the non-contributory old age pension. The judgment also records that the substantive hearing took place over four days in January and March 2013.