I currently pay child maintenance under a private agreement.
I am aware that if I was paying via the CSA then the maintenance would stop on the death of either parent, but this is a private agreement.
What is the default legal position in this case?
I think that any "dependent" person can apply to the executor of the estate of the deceased for a lump sum.
But is this true for child maintenance? In my case, I pay £25k/year to maintain my ex wife in a large 5-bedroom house (valued at £1M) in several acres of prime Sussex countryside, largely because she threatened to move away so I would not see the children unless I pay enough to enable her to continue to live there. I don't really mind doing this (it has only 5-10 years to run anyway) and luckily I can afford it, but it doesn't seem a justifiable position that somebody should be able to sponge off the estate of a dead person to this extent, especially as contact with the children will be non-existent :)
In my Will my death would set up an A&M trust whose trustees would presumably have the authority to pay stuff like school fees, but could they be forced to pay the child maintenance too? £25k/year would drain the likely fund quite fast. The lump sum equivalent of the outstanding child maintenance is probably £300k and that would drain out the likely content of the trust, leaving the children with nothing at all. Currently they would get the trust capital at age 25.
There is also a mortgage on the house, £100k, which (like the house) is entirely in her name but I am a guarantor for it and I actually pay it by a DD. I believe that this guarantee would enable the lender to go after my estate anyway for a repayment - is this correct?
I can see the trustees would probably have the discretion to make payments to the mother, but the reality is that she (an unqualified woman with no chance of landing a well paid job) could do an equity release on the house, or sell it and buy a smaller one, pay off the £100k mortgage (if the lender doesn't grab the money out of my estate anyway) and live without working for the rest of her days (she is 40).
What are the legal precedents in this kind of situation?