Clean break or spousal maintenance after divorce or dissolution in England, Wales or Northern Ireland

When you’re working out how to divide your assets, arranging a ‘clean break’ might make sense. Assets can include:

• money 
• property 
• shares  
• pensions 
• shared business interests.

A clean break means ending the financial ties between you and your ex-partner (husband, wife or civil partner) as soon as reasonable after your divorce or dissolution.

Where there is a clean break, there will be no spousal maintenance payments. Child maintenance payments are dealt with separately if you have children.

The only way you can guarantee that your ex-partner doesn’t try to make financial claims against you in future is to get a court order.

The court order must set out the financial arrangements and state that there is to be a clean break.

In some cases, there’s enough money to ‘buy out’ the financially weaker person’s maintenance claim.

This is done by calculating an amount of money that the receiving person can be given. They can then invest and receive an income from it, instead of getting maintenance payments.

This is a complicated area. So if you’re thinking about doing this, it’s important to get advice from a family law solicitor.

A lump sum payment doesn’t have to be paid in one go, although it often is. It can be paid in more than one instalment. For example, a part payment when the court order is made (or very soon afterwards), followed by other payments when the house is sold.

Any lump sums that are payable in the future potentially run the risk of having changes made to them. It’s important to get specialist legal advice if you think this might affect you.

In Northern Ireland, both you and your ex-partner need to agree to ‘buy out’ a maintenance claim.

In England and Wales, the court can impose a ‘buy out’ on you.

This is a regular payment made by a former husband, wife or civil partner to their ex-partner.

It’s only paid where one partner cannot support themselves financially without it.

The amount you receive would depend on:

• what money, property and assets you have now, or are likely to have in future
• what you need to live on, including any debts or obligations you currently have or may have in future
• the lifestyle you had as a family before the marriage broke down
• your age and how long you were married; a longer marriage or older age may affect the court’s decision of what they think is fair
• whether you have a physical or mental health condition that could affect your ability to work or support yourself financially
• your contribution to the family, not just financially, but also through caring for children or managing the home
• your conduct during the marriage, but only if the behaviour of you or your ex-partner was so serious that it would be unfair for the court to ignore it.

If the marriage or civil partnership is considered ‘short’ – for example, less than five years with no children – it might not be paid at all.

But where a couple has been together for a long time, or where an ex-partner is unable to work, it can be paid for a specified period (called a ‘term order’) or even for life. This is called a ‘joint lives’ basis. It means either until the person paying maintenance or the one receiving it dies.

But spousal maintenance on a joint lives basis is becoming rarer.

Any spousal maintenance payments you receive are tax-free, but it can affect how much Universal Credit or certain other benefits you can claim.

Use our Benefits calculator to check how spousal maintenance could affect what you’re entitled to.

It usually stops if:

• the payment term ends
• you or your ex-partner die, or
• the person receiving spousal maintenance remarries or enters another civil partnership.

It doesn’t necessarily stop if they live with a new partner without marrying or entering a civil partnership. Although the person paying it could use this as a reason to apply to the courts to get the amount reduced.

If you get spousal maintenance, it’s worth considering insuring the payments. This means that you’ll continue to receive an income if your ex-partner dies.

To do this, either you or your ex-partner can take out a life insurance policy on their life.

It doesn’t need be expensive. And the policy can provide a lump sum or monthly payments if they were to die while you were still receiving spousal maintenance.

Find out more in our guide What is life insurance? 

It’s worth reading our guide What to do with a lump sum payment after divorce or dissolution.