Birch v Birch: CA 31 Jul 2015

Application to vary undertaking given in a financial relief application. They had obtained a consent order compromising their claims. W undertook to obtain the release of H from his mortgage covenants. She had been unsuccessful in doing so and sought an order varying her obligation, delaying its performance until the youngest child attained 18. H objected that the court had no power to hear such an objection. W appealed.
Held: There was a jurisdiction to hear W’s application but that it was only a ‘formal’ jurisdiction which existed only ‘technically’; that scope for its exercise was ‘extremely limited indeed’; and that, in the light of what the court had been told, there was no basis for its exercise upon the wife’s application.

Judges:

Gross, Kitchin, McCombe LJJ

Citations:

[2015] EWCA Civ 833, [2015] CN 1500, [2016] 2 FLR 467

Links:

Bailii

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

Appeal fromBirch v Birch SC 26-Jul-2017
The parties, on divorcing had a greed, under court order that W should obtain the release of H from his covenants under the mortgage of the family home. She had been unable to do so, and sought that order to be varied to allow postponement of her . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Family

Updated: 03 September 2022; Ref: scu.550940