Many companies offer a bonus scheme to their employees; the financial sums received under these schemes by employees range enormously. For some, the bonuses they can receive are significant, and in some circumstances they can double their salary for the year. How will these bonuses be treated if a couple divorce? Partner Fiona Wood offers her advice.
Matrimonial assets
Bonuses that are acquired whilst the couple are together are usually considered matrimonial assets. This is the case if the bonus is received after separation but is for a financial period whilst the couple were together. In this scenario the bonus received will be put into the “matrimonial pot”, along with all the other matrimonial assets that are to be divided between the couple, either by agreement between them or if there is no agreement, as ordered by a judge.
If one spouse receives a bonus that relates to a period of work undertaken after the couple separated, this money will not automatically be ring-fenced and remain with the spouse who earned it. The parties’ financial needs have to be considered first when looking at what is a fair settlement. Unless there are significant matrimonial assets, a judge will not be able to ignore the bonus when looking at how the matrimonial assets should be divided, when considering the issue of need. Need is usually having money to enable you to buy somewhere suitable to live and money to meet your living expenses.
Bonuses earned in the future
What about bonuses earned in the future? Once the appropriate division of assets and pensions has been undertaken, you have to also consider whether it is appropriate for one spouse to pay spousal maintenance to the other spouse going forward. If spousal maintenance is not needed, as both spouses earn enough to meet their income needs, a clean break order will be made, preventing either spouse from making any financial claims against the other in the future. All bonuses received after the clean break will remain with the spouse who has earned them.
Whilst the law says that there should be a financial clean break between a couple if this is possible, in many cases one spouse cannot manage financially without spousal maintenance from the other going forward. In this scenario the amount paid as maintenance will depend upon the income that both spouses receive, taking into account their earing capacities, any other sources of income that they both have, and their reasonable income needs. If one spouse regularly receives large bonuses, a judge will not ignore these and can, if considered appropriate to meet reasonable need, order that a percentage of any net bonus received be paid to the other spouse, in addition to monthly payments, as part of the spousal maintenance payments.
It is worth noting that the Court of Appeal in the case of Waggott v Waggott [2018] stated that an earning capacity is not an asset that is capable of being shared on divorce. Therefore, one spouse is not entitled to half of the other’s income, even when an equal division of the assets and pensions are considered appropriate on divorce. Spousal maintenance should be calculated on a needs basis rather than on a sharing basis.
Child maintenance
With regard to child maintenance, this is governed by the Child Maintenance Service, whose calculation will take into account the payer’s previous year’s income when calculating the appropriate amount of child maintenance that should be paid. Bonus payments received will therefore be taken into account when calculating child maintenance. This can cause problems for some people who receive large bonuses some years but not in others. In this scenario they will have to be reassessed each year that their income changes, if they have not managed to agree the amount of child maintenance payable directly with their former spouse.
