Financial Provision for Children under Schedule 1 of the Children Act 1989

Introduction

This is often called the Cinderella of financial provision: it is underused but can be life changing for clients and children.

These claims are not made as often as they could be - practitioners are often reluctant to issue when they have scant experience of the process and so Judges also have less experience and can need encouragement to make orders.

These claims are starting to increase as the incidence of marriage declines and mortgages and housing becomes more costly, but the old trope of these cases being for wealthy non-resident parents needs to be exposed.

It is often the obvious defence to a claim for sale of a joint names property, as property settlement is a fundamental plank of many claims and those cases can move quickly. It is best for practitioners to have some knowledge of these claims to know whether to issue in response within a tight window.

Claims for periodical payments have to be understood through the important case of Dickson v Rennie and this webinar will look at this in detail, so that false hope is not raised.

What You Will Learn

This webinar will cover the following:

• A detailed consideration of the applicable legislation
• The seminal cases on how discretion is to be applied and the fundamental principles from the jurisprudence
• The most up-to-date case law and examples from the last 36 months
• Modest asset schedule 1 cases including recent judgments
• Practice points for how to best run your client’s application, the evidence you will need before issue and how to most effectively support their claim
• Practice points and tips on how to defend a case

This pre-recorded webinar will be available to view from Thursday 18th September 2025

Alternatively, you can gain access to this webinar and 1,700+ others via the MBL Webinar Subscription. Please email webinarsubscription@mblseminars.com for more details.