Guernsey Legal Resources

    When considering an application to vary a financial provision order, the court would apply the following principles:

    (a) it would consider the application to vary on the basis of the means of the parties as they stood at the time when the application was before it, and it would approach the matter as if it were assessing the payments de novo;

    (b) it should consider the falling income of one party and any increasing income of the other, and it should take into account any increase or decrease in responsibilities or liabilities, including obligations to a new family;

    (c) whilst the court condemned the notion that a father and husband could evade his financial responsibilities, it would nonetheless have regard to the reality of life after divorce—the party paying maintenance was entitled to balance his responsibilities to his existing family with his proper aspirations for a new future;

    (d) financial mismanagement by the payer might be a relevant circumstance to which the court was required to have regard;

    (e) where there was a child of the family who had not yet reached 18 years of age, his or her welfare would be the most important (though not paramount) consideration, and the court had to consider his or her welfare first before any other relevant matter (N v. N (Consent order: variation), [1993] 1 FLR 868, dicta of Roch, L.J. followed); and

    (f) generally, it would not enforce arrears if they were over a year old, unless there were special circumstances (B v. C (Enforcement: arrears), [1995] 1 FLR 467, followed); the court had to decide how it should exercise its discretion to enforce, rather than how it should exercise its discretion to remit.