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The Background
The Background
The factual background to these proceedings is very lengthy. It was helpfully set out in a detailed chronology and in the pleadings. I propose to set only the essential features of the history which are relevant to this litigation.
The mother and the father were never married. Their relationship had ended by the time T was born. T lived with her mother and spent time with her father.
On 23 October 2013, District Judge Moss made a financial arrangements order under Schedule 1 of the Children Act 1989. The principal terms of the order made by consent were that the father would:
settle the sum of £450,000 on trust for T to provide her with a home, the trust to terminate at the later of her reaching 18 or completing her tertiary education, where the mother was to be a joint owner of the property purchased with the trust money;
to pay the mother £20,000 to purchase fixtures and fittings for the property;
to make monthly payments to the mother of £5,200 per month, reducing to £3,000 per month from 1 May 2014 for the benefit of T until she reached 18; and
to make payments to the mother for T’s school fees.
On 21 July 2014, District Judge Bailsford made an order that T would live with her mother save for specified times when she would live with her father. At this time the mother was living in the North West of England and the father was living in West Sussex.
On 5 September 2017 the mother made an application to enforce the financial arrangements order. On 17 January 2018 she made an application to vary the child arrangements order by seeking a variation of the time T spent with her father, by reducing it.
Thereafter the mother and the father considered the arrangements by which the mother would move to live geographically closer to the father and also to seek to resolve the mother’s enforcement and variation applications. In the course of 2018 the mother moved with T from Wolverhampton to an address in West Sussex.
A letter of intent was signed by the parties on 11 December 2018. At this time neither the mother nor the father had instructed solicitors to advise them on the terms of the letter of intent, nor to represent them in negotiations about the same. Subsequently, the parents jointly instructed solicitors to assist in ensuring that the letter of intent could be implemented.
One provision of the letter of intent was an agreement by the mother and the father to seek, by consent, the adjournment of the court hearing listed on 19 December 2018 until the first available date after 1 March 2019. This hearing was adjourned by the court with the consent of both parties.
The solicitors instructed by the parties prepared documentation to create a bare trust of the property in West Sussex which was intended to be a home for the mother and T, subject to a 50-year tenancy at a nominal rent of £21 per month for the mother. The father signed the documentation on 7 February 2019. The mother did not. On 8 March 2019 the father completed the purchase of the property at 35 Lansdowne Road, Worthing, (‘the property’), which he and AL held on a bare trust for T. (N.B., there are now different trustees.)
On 2 July 2019 the mother notified the father that she intended to move from West Sussex to Wolverhampton with T.
On 11 July 2019 the father issued an application to prevent the mother from removing T from school and from West Sussex.
On 18 July 2019 the mother issued an application seeking:
an order to permit her to remove T from school and to move to Wolverhampton, in part because the father was said to have refused to provide funds to purchase a property pursuant to the financial arrangements order of 23 October 2013; and
an order to enforce the order of 23 October 2013.
On 31 January 2020 the mother issued this claim in the Chancery Division.
On 20 March 2020 the mother applied for a penal notice to be attached to the financial arrangements order.
The father filed and served a Defence and Counterclaim dated 29 May 2020. By his Counterclaim he sought a declaration that the letter of intent be set aside and be of no effect.
The mother filed and served an undated Reply and Defence to Counterclaim. She was given permission on 10 May 2021 to amend her Particulars of Claim in the terms of a draft Amended Particulars of Claim, but it was never signed or dated.
As I have mentioned above, on 10 May 2021 this claim was transferred from the Chancery Division to the Family Division. By order of 19 November 2021 the claim was allocated and reserved to me.
On 27 October 2023 I ordered that T should live with her father and should spend limited time with the mother as set out in the order.
In late December 2023 and early 2024 the father’s solicitor wrote to the mother on four occasions inviting her to withdraw this claim on the basis that there should be no order as to costs. There was no response. Accordingly, the father issued his application for a summary determination of this claim on 22 April 2024.