The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions v LR & Anor [2025] EWFC 271 (B)

Judgment date: 13 August 2025

https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewfc/b/2025/271

Overview

DJ Guirguis. Exercising the power contained in s 32 of the Child Support Act 1991, the court set aside a transfer of property and injuncted the respondents from further dispositions to defeat child maintenance claims.

Background

LR, who was in a civil partnership with PT, was separately the biological father of twins conceived through assisted reproduction using sperm he had donated. The twins live with their mother.

As the insemination was not through a clinic licensed by the HFEA, LR is their legal father and liable to pay child maintenance. In June 2021, the CMS wrote to LR to inform him that he was liable to pay £119.26 per week (later revised down twice). Due to non-payment, the CMS took steps to enforce the maintenance assessment and wrote to Natwest in June 2022 asking them to deduct £807.49 from LR’s account every month. LR shut his account shortly thereafter, fearing going into overdraft. The CMS discharged the order in August 2022.

As LR continued to fail to pay the sums due, the CMS wrote to LR in late-December 2022 warning him that they were intending to apply for a liability order which would allow them to put a charge on any land or property and order it to be sold. LR owned a property in his sole name.

LR transferred his interest in the Property to his civil partner PT in late-January 2023 for no consideration (other than natural love and affection). It was not an effective transfer because LR retained control of the Property and he retained the same rights as an owner. The CMS became aware of the transfer in September 2023 when they sought an interim charging order.

They applied to set aside the transfer and injunct LR and PT from further dealing with the property. LR raised the issue of paternity. At the case management hearing on 6 June 2025, DJ Guirgis determined that the issue of paternity had been implicitly determined by the magistrate making a liability order in the first instance. The issue therefore did not require determination.

The primary dispute before the court was whether the court could use s 32L of the Child Support Act 1991 to both set aside the transaction (s 32L(2) CSA 1991) and restrain both LR and PT from dealing with the property further.

To do so, the court had to determine:

• whether the transfer of the Property was a reviewable disposition;
• whether the transfer of the property had the effect of making ineffective a step that had been taken or may be taken to recover the amount outstanding; and
• whether the reviewable disposition was made with the intention of avoiding payment of child support.

Judgment

The court decided that it was a reviewable disposition in part as a result of both (i) the disposition not being for valuable consideration and (ii) the chronology of the events which took place, including the fact that the property was not transferred prior to January 2023.

The effect of this transfer was to make ineffective a step that had been taken to recover the amount outstanding, namely the charging order.

DJ Guirguis was satisfied that this was done with the intention of avoiding payment of child support.

Accordingly, the court set aside the transfer of the property and also made an order to injunct both LR and PT from dealing with the property until the debt is satisfied. The CMS was to apply for a further charging order for the balance over and above the amount of the existing charging order.

Point of clarification

Whilst child maintenance is often considered discrete to the family law sphere more generally, the wording of s 32L(5) of the Child Support Act 1991 is incredibly similar (though not in idem) with the wording of s 37(5) of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973. Practitioners should therefore make clients aware of the risks of attempting to avoid meeting child maintenance liabilities, particularly in light of the forensic and pragmatic approach of DJ Guirguis in the instant case.