There is no one answer to this question. In a recent High Court case*, we have been reminded that there are many “swirling considerations” which come to bear on determining what the correct level of spousal maintenance should be and which “cannot” be pressed into a formula which provides an answer.
At the centre of the deliberations is the concept of need but “as King Lear pointed out, needs are exceedingly hard to reason; even the poor have things superfluous to their basic needs; and most luxuries are strictly unnecessary.”
The High Court has therefore helpfully set out an 11 point plan, on how to determine the appropriate level of spousal maintenance, which is copied direct from the judgment here:
i) A spousal maintenance award is properly made where the evidence shows that choices made during the marriage have generated hard future needs on the part of the claimant. Here the duration of the marriage and the presence of children are pivotal factors.
ii) An award should only be made by reference to needs, save in a most exceptional case where it can be said that the sharing or compensation principle applies.
iii) Where the needs in question are not causally connected to the marriage the award should generally be aimed at alleviating significant hardship.
iv) In every case the court must consider a termination of spousal maintenance with a transition to independence as soon as it is just and reasonable. A term should be considered unless the payee would be unable to adjust without undue hardship to the ending of payments. A degree of (not undue) hardship in making the transition to independence is acceptable.
v) If the choice between an extendable term and a joint lives order is finely balanced the statutory steer should militate in favour of the former.
vi) The marital standard of living is relevant to the quantum of spousal maintenance but is not decisive. That standard should be carefully weighed against the desired objective of eventual independence.
vii) The essential task of the judge is not merely to examine the individual items in the claimant’s income budget but also to stand back and to look at the global total and to ask if it represents a fair proportion of the respondent’s available income that should go to the support of the claimant.
viii) Where the respondent’s income comprises a base salary and a discretionary bonus the claimant’s award may be equivalently partitioned, with needs of strict necessity being met from the base salary and additional, discretionary, items being met from the bonus on a capped percentage basis.
ix) There is no criterion of exceptionality on an application to extend a term order. On such an application an examination should to be made of whether the implicit premise of the original order of the ability of the payee to achieve independence had been impossible to achieve and, if so, why.
x) On an application to discharge a joint lives order an examination should be made of the original assumption that it was just too difficult to predict eventual independence.
xi) If the choice between an extendable and a non-extendable term is finely balanced the decision should normally be in favour of the economically weaker party.
On the other hand, it is easier to explain how not to calculate spousal maintenance! Click here to read about spousal maintenance myths debunked.
*SS v NS [2014] EWHC 4183 (Fam)
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