In short, the answer to this is “no”. There is no automatic sharing of a person’s income on divorce.
There is a possibility that spousal maintenance could be paid to the other party in some circumstances, however, this would be determined by the court on the basis of;
- Need (ie does the other person actually “need” some additional income to meet their outgoings)?
- Affordability. Can the person being asked to pay spousal maintenance actually afford it after meeting their own outgoings?
In the absence of an agreement on this issue, the court would have to assess what outgoings are reasonable, whether there is a shortfall between a spouse’s income against those outgoings and whether there is any surplus income from the other person left to pay over to them.
The court has an obligation to put into place a “clean break” wherever appropriate (ie that all financial ties with the other person be severed at the earliest point in time) so even if spousal maintenance was appropriate the court would look to do this for the shortest time required (known as a “term order”).
Case law over recent years has focussed on the principle that there is no automatic sharing of income after divorce. This is because income resources after divorce are not considered to be a “matrimonial asset”. With matrimonial assets, the starting point would be that they should be shared equally, unless evidence could be provided to the contrary as to why that should not to be the case. With income, the court look to other options such as whether income needs can be met from capital resources for example.
If there was a situation where the other spouse does not have an income at all or is unemployed, rather than simply getting half of the other spouse’s income, the court will look at needs, affordability and the time the other party might need to be able to “get back on their feet” (and spousal maintenance should only be paid for that amount of time).
Each case has to be determined on its own merits and facts and the court has to determine what is fair having taken into account all of the circumstances. There is no automatic entitlement and there is a steer away from this in recent case law.
