Spousal maintenance — international order for maintenance — discharge of maintenance — liability to pay maintenance from redundancy payment — reasonable needs — duration of maintenance — Family Proceedings Act 1980, ss 64, 64A, 65, 66, 99 & 142. The applicant sought spousal maintenance from her former husband; the respondent sought to have the parties' maintenance agreement discharged or varied. The parties had been married for approximately 20 years and had been separated for 11. A maintenance agreement had been signed between the parties in 2006 whereby the respondent would provide spousal maintenance to the wife. It was agreed that the respondent had overpaid, however the parties disputed whether the order should be corrected to reflect the over-payments and what period of time the over-payments covered. The court had regard to the parties' relationship, their ability to be self supporting and expenses; noting in particular the age of the applicant, and the respondent's redundancy and subsequent retraining in a different field. The court addressed whether the respondent was required to pay some of his redundancy payment to the applicant and found that, as it was intended to replace his income for a period of eight months, he was liable to continue maintenance payments over that period. It was noted that the applicant had received sums that greatly exceeded her reasonable needs of the period of the 11 years since the couple separated, and that the respondent was not responsible for her present lack of means by which to support herself as she had failed to adequately provide for herself in the future. The court found that the maintenance order should be discharged from 2015, but went on to address other issues relating to maintenance in the event that the conclusion regarding the maintenance order's discharge was incorrect. Judgment Date: 28 July 2017