Challenging financial consent orders; bankruptcy limit shock; Mr Beavis goes to Westminster; pre-action protocol facelifts
PD GETS IT WRONG
A boring way to start, we know, but the Family Procedure Rules 2010 (FPR) PD 30A says “The rules in Part 30 and the provisions of this Practice Direction apply to appeals relating to orders made by consent in addition to orders which are not made by consent. An appeal is the only way in which a consent order can be challenged [emphasis added].” You will need a small pair of sharp scissors. Those underlined words: please cut them out and insert them into a waste paper bin or shredding machine because, like the parrot, they are dead.
In CS v ACS and another [2015] EWHC 1005 (Fam)—in which the wife was seeking by way of application notice to set aside, on the ground of the husband’s alleged failure to give full and frank disclosure, a consent order for nominal maintenance and to have it substituted by an order for substantive maintenance-the President ruled that the words were ultra vires and had to be treated
