(ALTERATION OF AGREEMENTS BY COURT DURING LIVES OF PARTIES)
Where a maintenance agreement is for the time being subsisting and each of the parties is still alive, then either party may apply for an order before the competent court.
If the court to which the application is made is satisfied either;
- That by reason of a change in the circumstances in the light of which any financial arrangements contained in the agreement were made or, as the case may be, financial arrangements were omitted from it (including a change foreseen by the parties when making the agreement), the agreement should be altered so as to make different, or, as the case may be, so as to contain, financial arrangements, or
- That the agreement does not contain proper financial arrangements with respect to any child of the family.
The court may by order make such alterations in the agreement;
- By varying or revoking any financial arrangements contained in it, or
- By inserting in it financial arrangements for the benefit of one of the parties to the agreement or of a child of the family,
As may appear to the court to be just having regard to all the circumstances including if relevant the matters mentioned in section 25(3) of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, and the agreement shall have effect thereafter as if any alteration made by the order had been made by agreement between the parties and for valuable consideration.
Where a court decides to alter, by order as per section 35 of the Act, an agreement by inserting provision for the making or securing by one of the parties to the agreement of periodical payments for the maintenance of the other party or by increasing the rate of the periodical payments which the agreement provides shall be made by one of the parties for the maintenance of the other, the term for which the payments or, as the case may be, the additional payments a attributable to the increase are to be made under the agreement as altered by the order shall be such term as the court may specify, subject to the following limits;
- where the payments will not be secured, the term shall be so defined as not to extend beyond the death of either of the parties to the agreement or the remarriage of the party to whom the payments are to be made;
- Where the payments will be secured, the term shall be so defined as not to extend beyond the death or remarriage of that party.
Where a court decides to alter by order under section 35 of the Act, an agreement by inserting provision for the making or securing by one of the parties to the agreement of periodical payments for the maintenance of a child of the family or by increasing the rate of the periodical payments which the agreement provides shall be made or secured by one of the parties for the maintenance of such a child, then, in deciding the term for which under the agreement as altered by the order the payments, or as the case may be, the additional payments attributable to the increase are to be made or secured for the benefit of the child, the court shall apply the provisions of section 29(2) and (3) of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 as to age limits as if the order in question or secured periodical payments order in favour of the child.
For the avoidance of doubt, it is clearly stated that nothing in this section or in section 34 above affects any power of a court before which any proceedings between the parties to a maintenance agreement are brought under any other enactment including this Act to make an order containing financial arrangements or any right of either party to apply for such an order in such proceedings.