Re Tam Mei Kam

Case No.HCB 3777/2011[2012] 4 HKLRD 345

Court

HCB

Date18 Jul 2012

Judge—

Case Document

100%Judiciary

HCB 3777/2011

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

BANKRUPTCY PROCEEDINGS NO 3777 OF 2011

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Re: TAM MEI KAM, a Bankrupt

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Before : Hon Barma J in Court

Date of Hearing : 6 July 2012

Date of Judgment : 18 July 2012

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J U D G M E N T

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1.This was an application by Madam Tam Mei Kam (“the Bankrupt”) by Notice of Motion dated 29 May 2012 seeking orders that:-

(1) the decision of the Official Receiver made on 21 May 2012 be set aside; and

(2) the monthly maintenance of HK$120,000 being paid by HSBC Trustee (Hong Kong) Limited (“HSBC Trustee HK”) to the Bankrupt under an interim order made by Andrew Cheung J (as he then was) on 20 November 2007 pursuant to the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Ordinance (Cap 481) (“the Inheritance Ordinance”) be paid directly to the Bankrupt.

2.The background to the application can be summarised as follows:-

(1) The Bankrupt is the mother of the late Anita Mui Yim Fong, a well known Hong Kong singer and performer, who died at the end of 2003. Ms Mui left a will under which she bequeathed her residuary estate to a discretionary trust, called the “Karen Trust”, which was set up at the same time. The trustee of the Karen Trust was HSBC Trustee International Limited (“HSBC Trustee International”). The Bankrupt was a named beneficiary of the trust, but was not a beneficiary under the will. The Bankrupt sought unsuccessfully to challenge the will in probate proceedings, failing in the Court of First Instance, the Court of Appeal and the Court of Final Appeal. On 19 January 2012, Letters of Administration were granted to HSBC Trustee HK, as the lawful attorney of HSBC Trustee International.

(2) On 17 June 2011, a bankruptcy petition was presented against the Bankrupt by the solicitors who had acted for her in the first instance proceedings in the probate action, on the basis of outstanding unpaid fees. On 25 April 2012, I made a bankruptcy order against the Bankrupt. The Bankrupt has appealed to the Court of Appeal against the making of the bankruptcy order, but that appeal has not yet been fixed for hearing.

(3) On the making of the bankruptcy order, the Official Receiver became the provisional trustee of the property of the Bankrupt pursuant to section 12(1) of the Bankruptcy Ordinance.

(4) Prior to her bankruptcy, the Bankrupt had applied under HCMP 2981/2004 for an interim order for monthly maintenance to be paid to her out of Ms Mui’s estate, pursuant to sections 4 and 7 of the Inheritance Ordinance. Over a period of time, various interim orders were granted, by which an amount of monthly maintenance was awarded to the Bankrupt, and was from time to time increased. As at the date of the bankruptcy, the monthly amount payable to the Bankrupt was HK$120,000, pursuant to the order of Andrew Cheung J (as he then was) made on 20 November 2007.

(5) After the bankruptcy commenced, HSBC Trustee HK paid a cheque for HK$120,000 to the Official Receiver on 2 May 2012. The cheque represented the monthly maintenance payable to the Bankrupt, under Andrew Cheung J’s order, for the period from 21 May to 20 June 2012.

(6) The receipt of the cheque prompted the Official Receiver to look into the nature of the payment. Having considered the matter, the Official Receiver took the view that any maintenance payable by HSBC Trustee HK to the Bankrupt under orders made in HCMP 2981/2004 formed part of the Bankrupt’s assets which vested in her trustee in bankruptcy under section 43(1) of the Bankruptcy Ordinance, and hence vested in the Official Receiver as provisional trustee pursuant to section 58 of the Bankruptcy Ordinance. In other words, the Official Receiver considered that such payment (and any future payments that might be received by reason of orders made in HCMP 2981/2004) formed part of the Bankrupt’s estate in bankruptcy.

(7) Having discovered that HSBC Trustee HK had paid this maintenance payment to the Official Receiver, on 10 May 2012 the Bankrupt requested the Official Receiver to make an allowance to her to meet her domestic needs. On 21 May 2012, having considered the request, the Official Receiver decided to make an allowance of HK$75,246 to the Bankrupt for May 2012, pursuant to section 63 of the Bankruptcy Ordinance, which provides that a trustee in bankruptcy may make an allowance for the support of a bankrupt out of his bankruptcy estate.

(8) On 29 May 2012, the Bankrupt took out this application.

(9) On 4 June 2012, the Official Receiver received a second cheque for HK$120,000 from HSBC Trustee HK.

(10) On 12 June 2012, the Notice of Motion came on for its first hearing. Unfortunately, the Bankrupt was taken ill during the hearing, and the hearing had to be adjourned.

(11) Also on 12 June 2012, a creditors’ meeting was held, at which Mr Wong Teck Meng and Ms Chan Pui Sze of Messrs Briscoe Wong Ferrier were appointed as Joint and Several Trustees in Bankruptcy of the Bankrupt (“the Trustees”), to act without a creditors’ committee.

(12) On 22 June 2012, a directions hearing was held to fix a hearing date for the Notice of Motion. At the hearing, the Bankrupt complained that no further allowance had been paid to her although she was in need of it. I directed that pending the hearing of the Notice of Motion, an allowance should be paid to the Bankrupt of at least the same level as had been provided in May 2012. I also directed that notice of the hearing should be given to the Trustees, so that they could, if they wished, make submissions in relation to it.

(13) On 26 June 2012, the Official Receiver issued a further cheque for HK$75,246 to the Bankrupt, by way of allowance for her expenses for the month of June. This was provided to the Bankrupt via the Trustees.

3.At the hearing, the Bankrupt appeared in person, the Official Receiver was represented by Ms Joyce Lam of the Official Receiver’s Office, and the Trustees appeared in person. Skeleton arguments were filed by both the Bankrupt and the Official Receiver, while the Trustees lodged a report with the court setting out their position.

4.I was told at the hearing that in June 2012, the amount of the monthly maintenance had recently been ordered by Poon J to be increased to HK$140,000 per month. However, I was also told that subsequently, a few days before this hearing, Poon J had made a further order in HCMP 2981/2004 suspending the monthly maintenance payable to the Bankrupt, as Ms Mui’s estate did not have sufficient liquid funds to enable further payments to be made. It appears that consideration is being given (in those proceedings) to means by which funds may be raised for the estate, possibly by selling certain assets, such as an auction of Ms Mui’s concert costumes, or the sale of a property in Happy Valley. It is not at present known when the estate will again be in a position to resume monthly payments to the Bankrupt, but this appears unlikely to happen for some months.

5.As appears from the Notice of Motion, the application is based on three grounds:-

(1) That the monthly maintenance payments were excluded from the bankruptcy estate by section 43(2)(b) of the Bankruptcy Ordinance, which provides that “such clothing, bedding, furniture, household equipment and provisions as are necessary for satisfying the basic domestic needs of the bankrupt and his/her family” fall outside the bankruptcy estate, because the payments were provisions within the meaning of section 43(2)(b), and the amount of the maintenance to be paid each month had been fixed by the court in HCMP 2981/2004 at HK$120,000 on the basis that these were the “basic domestic needs” of the Bankrupt as at November 2007. It was suggested that in assessing such “basic domestic needs” in HCMP 2981/2004, the court had had regard to a number of matters, including the Bankrupt’s frustration and disappointment at the terms of Ms Mui’s will and the setting up of the Karen Trust, her old age, her poor health, her long standing living standards, her need for domestic helpers and a personal assistant, and the possible adverse effects of a forced departure from her previously accustomed standard of living. Thus, the entirety of the maintenance payment constituted “provisions” for satisfying her basic domestic needs, and had to be excluded from her bankruptcy estate.

(2) Even if this were wrong, and the monthly maintenance payments formed part of the bankruptcy estate, they should be excluded from the bankruptcy estate pursuant to section 43D of the Bankruptcy Ordinance, which provides that a bankrupt may apply to the trustee in bankruptcy for the exclusion from the estate of a particular item, and, if he objects to the trustee’s decision, may apply to the court. This was said to be the case because (as the Bankrupt submitted) the Official Receiver was obliged to make allowance for the Bankrupt’s support and maintenance, and could not adjust the level of maintenance previously ordered by the court in the Inheritance Ordinance proceedings.

(3) If, contrary to the previous submission, the Official Receiver could (in principle) adjust the amount of such allowance, the allowance of HK$75,246 granted by the Official Receiver to the Bankrupt was too low, and in deciding on that level of allowance, the Official Receiver had failed to have regard to the factors mentioned in the last sentence of paragraph (1) above, which should have led the Official Receiver to make an allowance in the same amount as the maintenance payments.

6.Ms Lam, for the Official Receiver, submitted that:-

(1) The monthly payments by way of maintenance payable to the Bankrupt formed part of the bankruptcy estate, as they consisted of money, and as such was property within the definition in section 2 of the Bankruptcy Ordinance, which expressly includes money.

(2) Alternatively the right to receive such payments pursuant to the court’s order of 20 November 2007 in HCMP 2981/2004 formed part of the bankruptcy estate, being itself property (namely, a thing in action) vesting in the Bankrupt at the time of the bankruptcy order, as the Bankrupt had a present right to receive the maintenance subject to funds being available to make such payments out of Ms Mui’s estate, until such time as the order of 20 November 2007 was discharged or suspended. As this right was a present right vested in the Bankrupt at the time of the bankruptcy order, it formed property falling within the bankruptcy estate, and not income falling outside it. In support of this proposition, Ms Lam relied on Re Landau (a Bankrupt) [1998] Ch 223, Krasner v Dennison [2001] Ch 76 and Patel v Jones [2001] BPIR 919.

(3) Even if the amount of maintenance were varied in future, any increase would be an interest arising out of or incidental to property of the Bankrupt, namely the right to seek a variation of the maintenance order pursuant to section 8 of the Inheritance Ordinance.

(4) The monthly payments were not “provisions” within the meaning of section 43(2)(b) as such provisions were limited to domestic or household effects needed to satisfy the basic domestic needs of the Bankrupt and her family.

(5) If, contrary to the preceding submission, the monthly maintenance payments were excluded from the bankruptcy estate by reason of section 43(2)(b), the Official Receiver was entitled to claim it pursuant to section 43B of the Bankruptcy Ordinance, which provides that where property is excluded from the bankruptcy estate by virtue of section 43, the trustee may claim it for the bankruptcy estate if satisfied that its value exceeds the cost of a reasonable replacement.

(6) The maintenance payments were not income within the meaning of section 43E of the Bankruptcy Ordinance, so as to be claimable for the bankruptcy estate only by way of an application for an income payments order, as they derived from property (the rights under the court order of 20 November 2007) which formed part of the bankruptcy estate, for the reasons given in sub-paragraph (2) above.

(7) As for the Bankrupt’s suggestion that the monthly maintenance payments should be excluded from the estate under section 43D of the Bankruptcy Ordinance, this was inappropriate, because the Bankrupt should not be permitted to retain such payments in full, but only to the extent needed to meet her reasonable domestic needs. Such reasonable domestic needs, in circumstances in which she was a bankrupt, were to be assessed by reference to different factors from those taken in account by the court when making an interim order under the Inheritance Ordinance.

(8) Finally, in order to successfully challenge the Official Receiver’s decision as to the amount of the allowance to be made to the Bankrupt under section 63 of the Ordinance for the support of the Bankrupt, it was necessary for the Bankrupt to show that the Official Receiver’s decision was perverse or clearly wrong, which was not the case here.

7.The Trustees stated that they were not yet in a position to make submissions on the issue of whether or not the monthly maintenance payments formed part of the bankruptcy estate, as they had not had sufficient time (and did not have sufficient funds) to instruct legal advisers to advise them as to this. However, in their report, they offered their observations as to the amount that might be required each month to meet the reasonable domestic needs of the Bankrupt, suggesting that a sum of slightly over HK$50,000 (plus an unspecified amount to cover the costs of tonic foods – which the Bankrupt had put at HK$18,000 per month) should be sufficient.

8.At the hearing, I drew the parties attention to Whytte v Ticehurst [1986] Fam 64, where Booth J, in considering whether the right to apply for financial provision under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 could survive the death of the surviving wife and be enforced by her estate, expressed the view (at p 69E-G) that, given that the legislative history of the Act and its predecessor statutes demonstrated that the relief available under it closely followed the relief from time to time available under legislation providing for financial provision for spouses on divorce or separation (the most recent of which at that time was the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973), it should be regarded as having, as one of its purposes, the object of enabling the court to place the surviving spouse in the same position as she would have been in had a matrimonial decree been granted during the other spouse’s lifetime. It seemed to me that this suggested that orders for maintenance under the Inheritance Ordinance might similarly be regarded as analogous or comparable to maintenance orders in the matrimonial context, and I requested the Official Receiver and the Trustees to ascertain whether there were any authorities dealing with the question of whether maintenance in the matrimonial context was regarded as part of the bankruptcy estate, or was regarded as income which had to be claimed by the trustee in bankruptcy by way of an application for an income payments order.

9.On 11 July 2012, the Official Receiver submitted a memorandum and a number of authorities on this point, of which the most relevant (in my view) were Re Landau [1934] 1 Ch 549, Re Tennant’s Application [1956] 1 WLR 874 and Re Cohen [1961] 1 Ch 246. On the same date, the Trustees wrote to the court enclosing certain materials that they had found as a result of their own research, including an extract from a manual entitled “Property Personal to the Bankrupt” which is one of a series of technical manuals produced by the United Kingdom Insolvency Service, which appears to be similar in function to the Official Receiver’s Office in Hong Kong. The Bankrupt was given the opportunity to comment on these materials, which she did by a submission dated 13 July 2012.

10.The first question for consideration is whether or not the payments made to the Bankrupt under the order of 20 November 2007 form part of the bankruptcy estate. The principal arguments advanced by Ms Lam in support of her contention that they do are those set out in paragraphs 6(2) and (6) above.

11.As to those submissions, it is relevant to note at the outset the very wide definition of “property” in section 2 of the Bankruptcy Ordinance:-

“ ‘property’ includes money, goods, things in action, land and every description of property, whether real or personal and whether situate in Hong Kong or elsewhere, also obligations, easements and every description of estate, interest and profit, persent or future, vested or contingent, arising out of or incident to property as above defined.”

12.It is also important, I think, to have in mind the structure of the provisions of the Bankruptcy Ordinance relating to the vesting of property and the ability of the trustee in bankruptcy to claim property acquired by a bankrupt during the period of the bankruptcy. These are to be found in sections 43 to 43F of the Bankruptcy Ordinance, and may be summarised as follows:-

(1) Section 43 provides that a bankrupt’s estate is (subject to that section and sections 43A to 43E) comprised of all property belonging to or vested in the bankrupt at the commencement of his bankruptcy, and any property which the Bankruptcy Ordinance provides is to form part of the estate or is to be treated as being so vested in the bankrupt. It provides (in subsection (2)) an exception for goods that are necessary for the personal use of the bankrupt in his work, and for satisfying the basic domestic needs of the bankrupt and his family.

(2) Section 43A provides that the trustee may, by notice in writing, claim for the bankruptcy estate any property acquired by the bankrupt during the period of the bankruptcy (other than property which would be excluded from the estate by the operation of section 43(2)). Section 43A does not, however, apply to any property which may be made the subject of an income payments order under section 43E – such property must, therefore, be claimed by a section 43E application and not by notice under section 43A.

(3) Section 43B enables a trustee by notice to claim property excluded by section 43(2) where he considers that the value of such property exceeds the cost of a reasonable replacement, subject to acquiring such a reasonable replacement at the cost of the estate in bankruptcy.

(4) Section 43C sets a time limit of 42 days for the giving of notices under sections 43A and 43B. Time runs for this purpose from the date when the trustee first had the knowledge necessary to enable him to lay claim to the property concerned.

(5) Section 43D allows a bankrupt or a creditor to apply to the trustee for particular items of property to be included in, or excluded from, the estate.

(6) Section 43E allows the trustee to apply for an income payments order claiming for the bankruptcy estate a part of the bankrupt’s income during the period of the bankruptcy. The amount claimed must leave the bankrupt enough income to meet the reasonable domestic needs of himself and his family. Subsection (6) provides that income comprises every payment in the nature of income which is made to the bankrupt, or to which he becomes entitled, from time to time, including payments in respect of the carrying on of any business or in respect of any office or employment.

(7) Section 43F provides that where the bankrupt’s residence forms part of the bankruptcy estate, the bankrupt may continue to live in it for a period of 6 months, which may be extended for up to a further 6 months.

13.In my view, the structure of these sections does suggest a demarcation between property falling into the bankruptcy estate, and property which may be made the subject of applications under (for present purposes) sections 43A and 43E, which apply to property or income not forming part of the bankruptcy estate. Thus, where income derives from property which forms part of the estate, such income is payable to the trustee without need for a further application under section 43E. For example, where real property which is the subject of a lease under which rent is payable forms part of the bankruptcy estate, the rent accruing thereafter likewise forms part of the estate. Similarly, where a bankrupt is entitled to a life interest in property (and thus to the income deriving from it), the life interest (being itself a present right to future property) will vest in the estate in bankruptcy, and the income deriving from it will likewise belong to the estate (see Re Cohen, [1961] Ch 246). In the case of pension payments which derive from rights already vested in the bankrupt at the time of the bankruptcy, even though these may only be payable after the date of the bankruptcy, the bundle of rights giving rise to the payments is present property vested in the bankrupt, which will vest in the trustee on the making of a bankruptcy order, and the later payments made in consequence of those rights will similarly belong to the estate (see Re Landau (a Bankrupt) [1998] Ch 223, Krasner v Dennison [2001] Ch 76 and Patel v Jones [2001] BPIR 919). In all of these cases, there is no need for the trustee to make an application for an income payments order under section 43E, although all the payments in question would appear to fall within the definition of “income”. The reasons for this are explained by Chadwick LJ in Krasner v Dennison, at paragraphs 54 to 67 of the judgment in that case.

14.It should be noted that a consequence of this treatment is that where income derives from property that falls into the bankruptcy estate, that income will remain payable to the trustee for the benefit of the bankrupt even after his discharge from bankruptcy, since property vested in the trustee does not re-vest in the bankrupt after discharge, and remains available to be used in satisfying the bankruptcy debts.

15.Although there do not appear to be any reported cases which have considered whether or not maintenance payments under the Inheritance Ordinance (or its equivalent in the United Kingdom) form part of the bankruptcy estate, it seems to me that guidance as to this may be obtained from the position in relation to matrimonial maintenance payments. As to this, the English authorities do appear to treat rights to matrimonial maintenance as not forming part of the bankruptcy estate, although the maintenance itself may be made the subject of an income payments order (see Re Landau [1934] 1 Ch 549 and Re Tennant’s Application [1956] 1 WLR 874). In Re Landau, Slesser LJ suggested (at pages 556-7) that an explanation for this might be that being an order that was capable of being varied by the court, it should not be regarded as permanent property of the wife, which could vest in her trustee in bankruptcy.

16.The manual provided to the court by the Trustees indicates, at paragraphs 30.118 and 30.119 respectively, that claims to maintenance under the United Kingdom equivalent of the Inheritance Ordinance, and to matrimonial maintenance in ancillary relief proceedings are personal to the bankrupt, and do not vest in the trustee. This would seem to be right in principle, and it seems to me to follow that in consequence, rights to enforce or vary orders made for such maintenance are similarly personal to the bankrupt.

17.I am therefore of the view that even though the right to receive maintenance pursuant to an order under the Inheritance Ordinance might arguably be characterised as a “thing in action” on the basis that it is something that is enforceable by court proceedings, it is, by reason of its personal nature, not something that forms part of the bankruptcy estate.

18.However, by reason of the analogy which I think can be drawn with matrimonial maintenance, I consider that payments of maintenance under the Inheritance Ordinance can be regarded as “income” within the meaning of section 43E of the Bankruptcy Ordinance, and as such, can be made the subject of an income payments order under that section. In the present case, however, no such order has been made, and the consequence is that the Official Receiver was not entitled to claim such payments as part of the bankruptcy estate, and the amount of such payments (less the amounts paid to the Bankrupt by way of allowance under section 63 of the Bankruptcy Ordinance) should be returned to the Bankrupt.

19.This deals with Ms Lam’s main ground for suggesting that the payments should be regarded as belonging to the bankruptcy estate. However, I would also add that I do not think that either of the other grounds which she put forward in support of the Official Receiver’s position (which I have described in paragraphs 6(1) and (3) above) assists the Official Receiver, for the following reasons:-

(1) As to the argument in paragraph 6(1), while the payments are clearly money, the money to be paid to the Bankrupt under the order of 20 November 2007 which was paid to the Official Receiver was not money held by the Bankrupt at the date of the bankruptcy order, but was only payable (and paid) to her after that date. Accordingly, it could not vest in the Official Receiver as provisional trustee on the date of the bankruptcy, but could only have been made the subject of an application for an income payments order under section 43E.

(2) As to the argument in paragraph 6(3), it seems to me that if there was to be (as there subsequently was in this case) an order varying the amount of the maintenance, any right to the new amount payable would arise under the later order, which was not in existence at the time of the bankruptcy. Thus, even if I am wrong in my conclusion that the benefit of the order of 20 November 2007 cannot be regarded as property of the bankrupt which vested in the bankruptcy estate on the making of the bankruptcy order, rights under an order for variation made after the bankruptcy occurred would have to be claimed separately by the trustee under section 43E of the Bankruptcy Ordinance (since the payments made under any varied order would be of the nature of income, in respect of which an income payments order could be made).

20.As a result of the point made in paragraph 19(2) above, it seems to me that the impact of the present decision is fairly limited, as it only affects the two payments which have been made since the bankruptcy commenced. Given that no further payments are likely to be forthcoming for some time, it seems likely that the HK$90,000 odd which will now have to be paid over to the Bankrupt would, in any event, soon have been exhausted by applications by the Bankrupt for an allowance out of the estate, which the Trustee would in all probability have acceded to, as the Bankrupt appears to have no other means by which to support herself.

21.In the light of the conclusion which I have reached, the questions whether the payments under the maintenance order should be excluded from the estate under section 43(2)(b) of the Bankruptcy Ordinance, and if so, whether they can be claimed by the Official Receiver under section 43B (these being the submissions described in paragraphs 6(4) and (5) above), do not arise for consideration. However, as the points have been argued, I shall explain briefly the conclusions to which I have come in relation to them.

22.In my view, the monthly payments cannot be regarded as “provisions” within the meaning of section 43(2)(b). The word “provisions” appears in the context of an enumeration of certain assets which are needed to satisfy a bankrupt’s basic domestic needs: “… clothing, bedding, furniture, household equipment and provisions”. Money would not appear to fit comfortably within this list. Further, the Chinese version of section 43(2)(b) uses the term “供應品”, which can be roughly translated as “supplies” or “consumables”, for “provisions”, which appears to support this view. In the circumstances, it does not seem to me that money or an order for the payment of money should be regarded as “provisions” for the purposes of this section. The necessity for the Official Receiver to have recourse to section 43B of the Bankruptcy Ordinance does not therefore arise.

23.Finally, in the light of my decision that the monthly maintenance payments do not form part of the bankruptcy estate, the submissions of the Official Receiver described in paragraphs 6(7) and (8) above similarly do not arise for consideration.

24.I would, however, observe in relation to the question whether the decision of the court, when making an interim order in HCMP 2981/2004 under the Inheritance Ordinance, defines the amount of the Bankrupt’s reasonable domestic needs which fall to be considered in the context of any income payments application which may be made by the Trustees in future, that it seems to me to be well arguable that it does not, as the factors that the court is required to take into account when making an order under the Inheritance Ordinance, which are set out in section 5 of that Ordinance would appear to go well beyond a consideration of the reasonable domestic needs of the applicant for such an order. In particular, the fact that regard is to be had to the size and nature of the estate, and the financial resources and needs of all applicants and other beneficiaries of the estate, suggests that there may be cases (of which this may be one) where the provision to be made under interim or final maintenance orders under the Inheritance Ordinance may be very generous, and be far more than is required for the reasonable domestic needs of a bankrupt. It must also be borne in mind that it will usually be reasonable to expect a bankrupt to make some adjustments to his or her lifestyle after bankruptcy, by economising on expenditure where possible.

25.That said, however, as the question is one that will only arise in the context of an application (if one is made in future) by the Trustees seeking an income payments order under section 43E of the Bankruptcy Ordinance, I think that it would be more appropriate for the question of what, for the purposes of such an application, the Bankrupt’s reasonable domestic needs are, to be left to be considered in the light of the circumstances prevailing at the time of such an application, as both the amount of the maintenance ordered, and the Bankrupt’s personal situation and needs at that time, may be rather different from the position now.

26.I therefore consider that the appropriate order to make would be to order that until such time as an income payments order is applied for by the Trustee, any payments received under the order of 20 November 2007, or any subsequent order, in HCMP 2981/2004 should be paid directly to the Bankrupt without deduction. So far as costs are concerned, although the Bankrupt acted in person, I see no reason why she should not be entitled to recover any costs that she may have incurred, and I therefore make a costs order nisi that the Bankrupt’s costs of the application are to be paid by the Official Receiver, to be taxed on the party and party basis if not agreed. So far as the Trustee’s costs of attending at the hearing of 6 July 2012 and of dealing with the court’s request for assistance in relation to the approach taken to matrimonial maintenance orders are concerned, I shall make an order nisi that there should be no order as to such costs.