30
CAP. 192] Matrimonial Proceedings and Property
[1972 Ed.
Alteration of agreements by court during lives of parties.
1965 c. 72, s. 24.
(2) In this section and section 36–
"child of the marriage" includes any child of both parties to the marriage, whether legitimate or not, and any child adopted by both parties to the marriage;
"financial arrangements" means provisions governing the rights and liabilities towards one another when living separately of the parties to a marriage (including a marriage which has been dissolved or annulled) in respect of the making or securing of payments or the disposition or use of any property, including such rights and liabilities with respect to the maintenance or education of any child, whether or not a child of the marriage; and "maintenance agreement" means any agreement in writing made, whether before or after the commencement of this Ordinance, between the parties to a marriage for the purposes of their living separately, being-
(a) an agreement containing financial arrangements, whether made during the continuance or after the dissolution or annulment of the marriage; or
(b) a separation agreement which contains no financial arrangements in a case where no other agreement in writing between the same parties contains such arrangements.
36. (1) Where a maintenance agreement (other than an agreement made more than six months after the dissolution or annulment of the marriage) is for the time being subsisting and the parties to the agreement are for the time being either both domiciled or both resident in Hong Kong and on an application by either party the Supreme Court or, subject to subsection (2), a magistrates' court is satisfied either—
(a) that by reason of a change in the circumstances in the light of which any financial arrangements contained in the agreement were made or, as the case may be, financial arrangements were omitted from it, the agreement should be altered so as to make different, or as the case may be so as to contain, financial arrangements; or
(b) that the agreement does not contain proper financial arrangements with respect to any child of the marriage,
the court to which the application is made may by order make such alterations in the agreement by varying or revoking any financial arrangements contained in it or by inserting in it financial arrangements for the benefit of one of the parties to the agreement or of a child of the marriage as may appear to that court to be just having regard to all the circumstances or, as the case may be, as may appear to that court to be just in all the circumstances in order to secure that the agreement contains proper financial arrangements with respect to any child of the marriage; and the agreement shall have effect thereafter as if any alteration made by the order had been made by agreement between the parties and for valuable consideration.
(2) A magistrates' court shall not entertain an application under subsection (1) unless both the parties to the agreement are resident in Hong Kong and shall not have power to make any order on such an application except—
(a) in a case where the agreement includes no provision for periodical payments by either of the parties, an order inserting provision for the making by one of the parties of periodical payments—
(i) for the maintenance of the other party, at a rate not exceeding five hundred dollars a month;
(ii) for the maintenance of any child of the marriage, at a rate not exceeding one hundred and fifty dollars a month in respect of each such child;
(b) in a case where the agreement includes provision for the making by one of the parties of periodical payments at rates not exceeding those aforesaid, an order increasing to such higher rate not exceeding the appropriate rate aforesaid, or reducing the rate of, or terminating, any of those payments.