Wife’s ‘costs disproportionate’ maintenance application dismissed

It is a basic fact that anyone contemplating taking court proceedings should first consider the possible costs involved.

This is particularly relevant if the proceedings seek some sort of monetary award. In such cases the question should always be asked: might the costs outweigh, or seriously diminish, the potential award? If so, then obviously very careful thought should be given as to whether it is worth pursuing the application.

As we will see in a moment, there is also the related risk that the application will be unsuccessful, in which case there is the additional risk that the court may order the applicant to pay the other party’s costs.

All of this was very clearly demonstrated in a recent case that took place in the Family Court in Plymouth.

The case concerned a wife’s application for ‘maintenance pending suit’, i.e. a temporary order requiring the husband to pay maintenance to her, pending the outcome of a financial remedies application on divorce. The amount of maintenance that the wife sought was £500 per month.

The husband opposed the maintenance pending suit application.

The crucial point to note was that the final hearing of the financial remedies application had been fixed for early July 2025, just four months after the wife’s maintenance application. Thus if the maintenance application was successful then the most that the wife would have received under the order was £2,000.

Yet, as the judge hearing the wife’s application noted, the wife had incurred costs of £8,716 in connection with the application, and the husband had incurred costs in responding of £4,170. Thus the parties had incurred nearly £13,000 between them.

Unsurprisingly, the judge described the application as “thoroughly cost disproportionate”, and called it “a bad application to make at this late stage in the case.”

In any event, he found that the wife had not convinced him that an interim maintenance order was ‘manifestly required’. Accordingly, he dismissed the wife’s application, with the result that the wife had incurred significant costs for nothing.

And it may yet get even worse for the wife. We are told at the end of the judgment that the husband was likely to seek an order that the wife pay his costs of the application. If he does and is successful, then obviously the wife could have thousands more to pay.

You can read the full judgment here.

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