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Mills v Mills: Fairness over needs: Taking the ‘cherry’ out of the ‘meal ticket’
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Many family lawyers (including me) are starting to put the 'meal ticket for life' phrase in the same bracket as 'quickie divorce' and 'common law spouse'. It cropped up again in the Supreme Court case of
Mills v Mills [2018] UKSC 38 with Lord Wilson stressing that it is both misleading and unattractive to refer to a joint lives maintenance order in such a way.
Of course the issue which the Supreme Court had to determine in
Mills was not the merits or otherwise of a joint lives order, but the narrower point concerning whether Mr Mills should have to pay increased maintenance to cover the whole of Mrs Mills’ monthly rental payments in circumstances where provision for her housing had already been made by virtue of the capital settlement which formed part of the original consent order in 2002.
Read the full article here.
