Maintenance Orders: Registration in Public Registry: Law drafting instructions

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A decision made 21 January 2016:

Ministerial decision reference MD-C-2016-0005
Decision summary title Law Drafting Instructions relating to registration of maintenance orders in the Public Registry
Decision summary author	Senior Legal Advisor, Law Officers Department	Is the decision summary public or exempt?		Public
Report title Law Drafting Instructions relating to registration of maintenance orders in the Public Registry
Report author or name of person giving report	Senior Legal Advisor, Law Officers Department	Is the report public or exempt?		Public
Decision and reason for the decision The Chief Minister decided to instruct the Law Draftsman’s Office to prepare draft legislation to implement a proposal that orders of the Family Division of the Royal Court for maintenance should be able to be registered in the Public Registry, thus giving security to the recipient over immovable property of the payer for ongoing payments under such orders. The reason for enabling maintenance orders to be registered is to give the receiving party, who is owed maintenance, security dating from the registration of the maintenance order, thus ranking above creditors who have since registered their claims on the payer’s property. The vice in the existing legislation is that the receiving party is liable to lose out to subsequent creditors who are able to obtain a hypothec that gives them priority in subsequent bankruptcy proceedings. The ability to register the maintenance order and so create a hypothec will ensure that the recipient party secures his/her rightful ranking amongst the creditors in a bankruptcy affecting the immovable property thus charged. This proposed reform was supported by the Jersey Law Commission and has also been recommended by the Legislation Advisory Panel.
Resource implications There are no resource or manpower implications.
Action required Law Draftsman to draft necessary short Law in preparation for the Chief Minister to lodge au Greffe.
Signature			Position Senator I J Gorst Chief Minister

Date signed			Effective date of the decision