When can a court order made in financial proceedings upon divorce be invalidated? Sarah Hughes reports
The House of Lords case of Barder v Barder (reported as Barder v Calouri [1988] AC 20, [1987] 2 All ER 440) is still the leading authority on when a new event can invalidate an existing court order made in financial proceedings upon divorce.
In Barder , the wife killed herself and the two children of the marriage five weeks after the conclusion of a consent order. The husband applied to the court for permission to appeal out of time and to set aside the consent order, arguing that the circumstances had been fundamentally and unforeseeably altered by the untimely death of his family. His application was opposed by the late wife’s mother. However, it was upheld by the court and the order was set aside.
The court set out four conditions that must be met before leave to appeal out of time is granted:
- a new event must have occurred since the original order which invalidates the fundamental assumption upon which the order was made.
