WEST LONDON FINANCIAL REMEDY JARGON BUSTER TOP 40
WEST LONDON FINANCIAL REMEDY JARGON BUSTER TOP 40
Lawyers love jargon. We were forced to abandon Latin in the very late 1990s but there remains a body of phrases and acronyms, shorthand to us, which will baffle and confuse.
This jargon buster will allow you to speak family legalese fluently, should you wish to.
1. Ancillary relief: the claims which you can make for a financial order on divorce. It is “ancillary” to the main relief I.e. the divorce.
2. Maintenance: money paid by one spouse (husband or wife) to the other or children.
Spousal maintenance is discretionary, it depends on the facts.
Child maintenance is mandatory and for most is dealt with by the Child Maintenance Service if you cannot agree on what should be paid (https://www.gov.uk/calculate-your-child-maintenancehttps://wwww.gov.uk/calculate-your-child-maintenance).
3. Maintenance Pending Suit (“MPS”): financial support paid at an early stage in a case, before a decree nisi has been made. Usually it is a holding order until more information is available.
4. Interim/periodical payments: maintenance paid after a decree nisi but before a final order has been made.
5. Periodical Payments:
6. Nominal Maintenance: a small sum, say £1 per annum paid by one party to the other. It is designed to be protective as it can be varied upwards to a more significant amount if circumstances (needs), require it. It is usually paid to a party who may be able to work in the future or who currently has child care responsibilities which limit what they might do in the future and deals with the uncertainties of what might happen in the future.
7. Global Maintenance: a combined payment of child and spousal maintenance.
8. Term Order: maintenance for a set period of time, usually until children reach adulthood. The person receiving can apply for the term to be extended.
9. Joint Lives Order: a maintenance order payable during the lives of the parties, usually until the death of either party or the receiving party’s re-marriage.
10. Section 28(1)A cut off: a condition attached to a term maintenance order which means the person who receives maintenance cannot apply for the term to be extended.
11. Clean break: part of a final court order which settles once and for all the financial remedy claims between the parties.
12. Capital clean break: means that all claims for lump sum and property adjustment orders are either dismissed or as set out in the order.
13. Income clean break means all income claims are dismissed now or after a term order.
14. Duxbury fund: named after the case of …. Duxbury… this occurs when a sum of money is paid in advance by one party to another in lieu of their future maintenance claims. It takes into account a notional investment return and income needs and the age of the receiving The maintenance claims would terminate on receipt of a Duxbury payment.
15. Capitalised maintenance: Duxbury-light: generally money paid to cover short term maintenance needs: £400 per month for 5 years = £24,000, capitalised to £15,000. Why? Takes account of receiving the money up front as maintenance ends of death, remarriage or possibly co-habitation and assumes the paying party can pay in the future. Capitalising is a gamble but can lead to an immediate clean break
16. FMH: former matrimonial home – the family home.
17. Property Adjustment Order: a one off court order transferring ownership of an asset, usually a house or flat, from joint names to the sole name of another or from one party to another.
18. Lump Sum Order: a one off court order for the payment of a sum of money by one party to another.
19. Mesher Order: a court order whereby one party (usually with the children), remains living in a property for a period of time (usually until the children are 18 or the end of secondary education). The parties agree in advance when the property should be sold, who pays for what in the meantime and the shares each will get on sale.
20. Financial Remedy Application: the name of the court application which leads to a financial settlement on divorce.
21. MIAM: Mediation Information and Assessment Meeting: a mandatory pre-court meeting at which a mediator determines whether mediation is appropriate and if not certifies this so that a court application can be issued.
22. Form A: the form used to make an application for a financial remedy order.
23. Form H: an estimate of cost filed in advance of each hearing by both parties.
24. MCA: Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, the main act of Parliament which deals with divorce and financial remedy cases.
25. FPR: the Family Procedure Rules 2010. The statutory instrument which sets out the practice and wy in which the family court operates.
26. Matrimonial Asset: those financial assets which were generated during the relationship and which the parties are entitled to share: – the family home, savings, pensions contributed to during the period.
27. Counsel: a Barrister.
28. Pension Sharing Order: a court order sharing a percentage of one spouses pension with another.
29. Offsetting: when a claim against one asset is “offset” against another. So a pension claim is not made in return for a party getting the whole of the family home (this is a simplification). Expert evidence is needed to assist with this.
30. Without Prejudice Offer: a confidential offer of settlement which cannot usually be seen by the Court. This allows the parties to discuss the case frankly. The Judge at the FDR can see any without prejudice offers, but usually cannot then play any further part in the case. In family cases these offers do not have any effect on who pays legal costs.
31. Open Offer: an offer of settlement made by one party to the other, which is not without prejudice and can be taken into account by a Judge when considering who should pay the legal costs fro the date of the offer. An open offer is not confidential and the Judge at a hearing can consider it.
32. Matrimonial Property: assets generated during the relationship, regardless of whose name they are in, which each party can share as of right. This includes, pensions, savings, the family home, investment properties.
33. FDA: First Directions Appointment: the initial timetabling hearing in a financial remedy application before a District Judge. Can be used as an FDR if both parties agree.
34. Final Hearing: the last stage in a case: the parties give evidence in court and are cross-examined by the other party’s barrister. The hearing will be in private, usually before a District Judge. One the Judge has heard the evidence and summaries from both sets of lawyers, they make a decision.
35. Section 25 criteria: the factors which a Judge takes into account when considering the order they should make. (http://wwww/legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1973/18/section/25).
36. Needs case: a case in which the financial resources are not enough to be shared equally and meet both parties need for housing, income and pension. Most cases are “needs” cases
37. Conduct: the bad behaviour of one party, during the marriage or in the legal proceedings (“litigation conduct”), which the other says should be taken into account in the financial settlement. It is very unusual for this to happen.
38. Full and frank disclosure: the duty arising between spouses to ensure that each has enough information concerning the resources and circumstances of the case to allow a fair settlement to be reached. It is not unlimited; information must be proportionate and relevant to the case.
39. Material non-disclosure: a failure by one party to be full and frank, which is relevant to the settlement and would have altered the settlement.
40. Consent Order: a court order made with the agreement of the parties and approval of the Judge. This can deal with court timetabling or the overall settlement. The court is not however a “rubber stamp” in this process.