Debbie Chism featured in the latest Citywealth weekly newsletter, discussing the pros and cons of a financial clean break on divorce compared to ongoing spousal maintenance.

The article says:

‘Debbie Chism, partner at Stewarts, explains that one of the advantages of a clean break is that it leaves everyone financially independent from one another and the settlement won’t be affected by an early death or job loss. “A joint lives maintenance order is vulnerable to all of those factors and could result in it ending relatively soon,” says Chism. “[This] would be to the payer’s advantage but there is no guarantee. A fixed term, non-extendable maintenance order, also known as a deferred clean break, depending on the term, is also a cost-effective outcome for the payer.”’

Debbie goes on to talk about a case in which she was acting for the husband who refused to buy out his wife’s maintenance claims as he thought she would remarry in the future. Debbie says:

“His instincts were spot on … She remarried within 12 months with the result that the maintenance was automatically terminated, much to my client’s delight.”

“To be financially separated from the person from whom you have already emotionally and legally separated allows both parties to move on with their lives. It also means there are no future arguments about reducing maintenance due to job loss, pay cuts or retirement.”

To read the full article, ‘Divorce: clean break vs maintenance?’, please visit the Citywealth website.

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Media contact: Lydia Buckingham, Senior Marketing Executive, +44 (0) 20 7822 8134, lbuckingham@stewartslaw.com