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What are 'maintenance payments'?

If you’re ending a marriage or civil partnership, you can try to agree maintenance payments with your husband, wife or civil partner. These are regular payments to help you with everyday living costs.

There are two types of maintenance payments:

• maintenance to help look after children
  
• maintenance to provide for your former spouse or civil partner
  

Child maintenance payments

If you’ve had children together, one of you may need to pay maintenance to the other who is the child’s ‘main carer’.

Under the law, both of you are still financially responsible for your children, even if they no longer live with you.

The best way to arrange child maintenance is to talk it over and reach an agreement together. Visit the Child Maintenance Options website for advice on how to do this.

If you can’t reach an agreement, you can go to the Child Support Agency (CSA). The CSA can work out how much is due and even collect it for you.

• About child maintenance

• Child Maintenance Options Opens new window

Maintenance between spouses and civil partners

When you discuss your finances, you may be able to reach a simple agreement together. For example, you could decide that one of you will pay the rent or mortgage and the other will pay all the household bills.

This is called a ‘voluntary agreement’. You can put it into writing and keep copies or you can leave it as a spoken promise to each other.

Independent help to reach an agreement

If you find it difficult to agree on the details, you can get some advice from a family mediator - an independent person trained to help. Follow the link below to find a family mediator near you.

Bear in mind that an arrangement made with a mediator isn’t legally binding – so if things go wrong, you’ll still need to go to court.

• Find a family mediator Opens new window

Using solicitors to make it legally binding

You can also ask a solicitor to help you reach an agreement about maintenance. If you do reach agreement - with or without help - you can ask a solicitor to put it into a legal document called a ‘consent order’. The solicitor will then get it approved by a court so that it’s legally binding agreement. Follow the links below to learn more.

• Legal agreements if you split up or separate

• Find a legal adviser Opens new window

If you can't reach an agreement with your husband, wife or civil partner

Maintenance paid to a former partner (that is not for any children) is known as ‘spousal maintenance’.

If you can’t reach an agreement over spousal maintenance, you’ll have to go to court and apply for a 'financial order'. A financial order is sometimes referred to as an ‘ancillary relief order’. A judge will then decide how to handle maintenance and any other financial issues.

What a court may do about maintenance

The court may issue a ‘maintenance order’ to force your husband, wife or partner to pay you maintenance. The court will look at issues like your income and contribution during the marriage or civil partnership.

This could be financial or non-financial contributions, such as staying at home to look after children. The court will also look at any property and other money that needs to be divided.

Any maintenance amount is usually based on the difference between your existing income (including benefits) and what the court thinks you need to live on. A maintenance order can be set for a fixed period of time or until one of you dies, remarries or enters into a new civil partnership. Payments can also be changed to match new circumstances. For example, if one of you loses your job or gets much better paid work.

Applying for a financial order at court can take a long time and be very stressful. You usually need a solicitor and will need to pay legal fees. It’s there as a final option if you can’t come to an agreement using the other ways described above.

• What a financial order is

• Using solicitors or mediators to work out your ancillary relief application

• Applying for a financial order