Private School Fees & Divorce

For those parents with children in private school, one of their main concerns following a financial separation or divorce is the question of private school fees and how these will be paid.

The parents wish to minimise disruption for the children particularly in light of any separation. Keeping the children at the same private school will go someway to maintain some form of stability and security for them. At the same time there is the added pressure on the household income and resources, bearing in mind the outgoings for two properties.

School fees are a financial arrangement. A different issue may arise in which school the children should attend or a move to a new school. These are considered welfare issues and in terms of what is best for the children. Here you can consider child arrangements and also a specific issue order if you want your child to go to a certain school or a prohibited steps order if you wish to stop this and maintain the status quo.

There are many options you can consider:

• Discussing private schools with your ex-partner and what can be afforded
• Seeking legal advice from a family law solicitor to look at all of the financial issues to help advice you what is best both short and longer term
• To discuss matters through mediation to hopefully reach a family law agreement
• To make a financial application to the family court, which should be a last resort

We advise the parties to first of all attempt to reach a resolution outside of the family court, as this will probably save a lot of emotional stress and increased legal fees. If an agreement is reached, then that can be recorded as part of an overall financial consent order.

A school fees order is an family court order as part of a wider financial settlement which records how the school fees should be dealt with, for example:

• Which parent should pay the fees or both parents
• How are those to paid (from income and/or a capital resource)
• How long the school fees are to be paid for

It is important to consider school ‘extras’ such as music lessons, costs of uniform, activities and so on. You can build in these ‘extras’ into a financial order.

If the parents are not married, then a school fees order can be made under Schedule 1 of the Children Act.

A school fees order is a type of financial order that a judge can make. Other types of financial orders include property adjustment orders, lump sum orders and pension sharing orders. As with any financial order, the family judge has a discretion to make one or not.

Private school fees are really a type of maintenance order, which can always be varied both in terms of the amount to be paid and the duration of it.

Some points which might indicate that the family court may make a school fees order are:

• The principle that keeping the children in the same school is a good starting point
• If the children are in key exam years, for example, GCSE and A-Levels

However, the issue of school fees needs to be considered with all of the circumstances of your case and this is just one aspect of the financial case. Again, this is why it is important to seek specialise family law advice from a solicitor who can help you look at all of your rights and options. It is important the financial issues are looked at as a whole and not in vacuum. Issues of affordability can also come into play.

It is important to look at these financial issues commercially as well and these points may help you:

• Proportionality has to be a key consideration. It is not proportionate to spend significant sums of money at court relating to private school fees, when the money could be better spent could have instead been used to fund the cost of the school fees themselves.
• It is always important to have a clear understanding of the cost of any additional expenses that will need to also be covered such as the cost of extra-curricular activities.
• It is important that parents are aware of their separate contractual obligations to the school. This is because, if the paying parent defaults on a school fees order, this might leave the school contractually entitled to pursue either party for that payment.

Our specialist family lawyers, child and financial arrangements, including the payment of private school fees. We are ranked in Teir 1 of Legal 500 which is an independent directory to the legal profession.

We also provide robust and realistic advice and strive to obtain the best outcomes which can be seen from our testimonials.