Having division of relationship property and future payments for maintenance negotiated as a ‘job lot’ restricts later demands for changes to maintenance obligations. One spouse argued she had compromised her claims to property in order to increase entitlements to maintenance.
A partner in a large international accounting firm looked to reduce his agreed commitment to pay about $20,000 per month in maintenance to his former spouse and their four children. Fictitious names were used for court proceedings. The High Court was told the two separated after fourteen years marriage. A 2016 mediation resulted in a comprehensive agreement. Property was divided. Ongoing maintenance was agreed on a sliding scale: initially $11,900 per month with future adjustments for inflation and reductions by twenty per cent as each child reached age 18. All payments are to stop when the youngest turns eighteen in 2029.
Ten months after the agreement came into effect, the husband reduced monthly maintenance payments to $7000. This after applying to Inland Revenue for a formula assessment of child support. When his former wife sued successfully for the shortfall, he applied for a maintenance variation. The High Court upheld a Family Court ruling that the Family Proceedings Act limits circumstances in which relationship property agreements can be varied if this affects the interests of a child. Maintenance can be reviewed only if maintenance commitments are severable, being negotiated separate from relationship property division. The husband said the two issues were negotiated sequentially at their mediation, property division first and maintenance second, but were then included in one single final agreement. Justice Dobson said the two issues were intertwined. It was not a case of two discrete agreements being bundled together into one document for convenience. There was no agreement over a valuation of the husband’s share of his accounting practice. Valuations ranged between $270,000 and $750,000. The wife specifically agreed not to dispute the value in return for the maintenance provisions agreed. The husband’s application for a review of maintenance was struck out.
The court was told their 2016 agreement includes a process for future reviews of maintenance ‘to take into account any significant change in the incomes of either party’. The husband did not take up his former wife’s invitation to seek a review using this provision.
Hopkins v. Whitehead – High Court (7.08.18)
18.160