The Supreme Court has ruled that a divorced husband should not have to increase payments to his ex-wife after she mismanaged her finances following their split.
The court today unanimously allowed the appeal of the husband in Mills v Mills, concluding that the judge at first instance had been entitled to decline to vary an order for periodical payments so as to require the husband to pay all of the wife’s rental costs. The Court of Appeal had backed the wife’s request to increase periodical payments.
It was heard that following their divorce in 2002, after a 15-year marriage, she had received £230,000 in settlement of her capital claims against him, and it was agreed that the husband would make annual periodical payments of £13,200. But by April 2015, following a series of property purchases and later the wife beginning to rent accommodation, she had debts of around £42,000 and there was a £4,092 shortfall per year between her needs and the existing level of the periodical payments.
Lord Wilson, giving the lead judgment in the Supreme Court, said the Court of Appeal had erred in saying the judge at first instance had given no reason for declining to increase the payments order. The judge’s order to retain existing periodical payments was restored.