A judge has pleaded with a divorcing couple to rein in their legal spending before they run out of money altogether.

His comments came after the wife had applied to the court for interim payments direct to her and for more than £22,000 to take her and the children on holiday.

In the event, the couple spent almost £40,000 in a month on legal fees disputing the application. Deputy District Judge Mark Harrop ruled that neither party had won outright and so they should both pay their own costs.

He said the couple were at ‘real risk’ of running out of money before the husband’s February bonus after spending more than £130,000 between them to reach their first procedural court appointment.

‘The wife’s legal fees in this application, as in the proceedings as a whole, are more than double those of the husband’s,’ said the judge. ‘It is not immediately obvious to me why that should be and suggests a difficulty in approaching the case in a pragmatic and proportionate way. The parties should not need reminding that their resources are finite, and that every pound they spend fighting each other is a pound that will no longer be available for them and their children.’

The court heard that the husband, who works in finance, earns a salary of £350,000 a year and receives a further £175,000 annually in a cash bonus and shares.

The wife filed for divorce at the start of this year and the first appointment took place in May, where the husband expressed concern that she had already incurred £65,000 in legal fees in comparison to his £26,000.

A week after the first appointment, the husband emptied the joint bank accounts and stated that he would pay the £7,700-a-month rent and utility bills directly.

The wife applied to the court for this money to be paid to her and threw in an application for £22,150 for the cost of a summer holiday. The husband refused to budge on the bills but offered £10,000 for the holiday, later dropping it back to £6,000 to account for his growing legal fees.

The judge refused the application for the cost of the holiday, adding that it was not appropriate for the court to ‘gamble this family’s financial security’. He said the wife ‘did herself no favours’ with the holiday application and that it had distracted attention from her core complaint.

But he did order that the rent and utilities money be paid to the wife, saying it was ‘objectionable’ how the husband had imposed changes without warning or agreement.