My ex-wife remarried in September 2007 and my maintenance payments to her should have stopped. Unfortunately my payments were made by attachment of earnings and I wasn’t able to change the order until the following April, by which time she had received £1,000 she wasn’t entitled to. If I’m asked to start paying maintenance for the children again, should either of them go to college, can I refuse?
It may be too late to get the money back from your ex-wife now, simply because there’s a six-year time limit within which you must begin court proceedings to recover money you are owed. If you’re asked for further maintenance for the children it’s likely that a court (or the Child Maintenance Service) would regard payments made to your wife and payments made to your children as completely separate issues.