The High Court ordered a husband to pay his wife €3,700 a month in interim maintenance pending trial in their judicial separation proceedings, along with a further €700 a month in equal shares for their dependent children.
In a judgment delivered on 29 July 2016, Ms Justice Bronagh O’Hanlon also ordered the husband to pay €25,900 immediately to cover seven months of arrears. He must continue paying €600 towards the wife’s rent for one further month, covering August 2016. The wife is to provide proper records of how she uses the monthly maintenance.
The court said the parties’ financial disclosures were inadequate and that both had exaggerated to some extent in their affidavits of means. The wife’s counsel said she had monthly expenses of about €6,000 and had received no maintenance since the separation in July 2014 apart from rent payments. The court noted that those expenses had not been vouched to it.
The husband said he had paid €38,000 between July 2014 and November 2015 and continued to pay the wife’s rent. The court estimated that the wife had spent about €80,000 from savings over two years, in addition to the maintenance he said he paid. It considered that her spending exceeded €5,000 a month, while noting that some savings had gone towards legal fees and that at least some of the children had lived with her for part of the period.
The court said the husband had not paid maintenance for many months, although €1,000 was lodged the day before the motion hearing. It also noted that he had bought a 2015 Range Rover outright and had not disclosed it in his affidavits of means. The court restrained him from transferring ownership of, pledging as credit, or otherwise reducing the vehicle’s value pending trial.
The husband may seek to sell the Range Rover under court supervision. If the court sanctions a sale, the net proceeds must form a fund controlled by the wife, from which she may deduct €3,700 a month; the court said the husband could then seek to suspend that monthly payment, subject to its approval.
The parties’ motions concerning alleged transfers and dissipation of funds were adjourned to the trial. The court directed both parties not to dissipate assets held in their accounts without its permission pending trial. It left the question of a further section 47 report concerning the children for consideration after hearing from the assessor. The judgment recorded the wife’s contention that the husband had not complied with an earlier access order, including her claim that he refused to transfer the children to her; it did not determine that dispute in this judgment. Costs were reserved and a stay was refused.