MAINTENANCE
Maintenance is an amount of money that a person has to pay towards another person based on a legal duty to support that person. A legal duty to support a person is based on the relationship between the persons, the need to be supported and the ability to support. For more on maintenance, see the brochure below.
CHILD MAINTENANCE
Every parent is legally required to pay child maintenance until their child is 18 years old. Should the child not be self-supporting at 18, the parent is required to continue to pay maintenance until the child is self-supporting. Child Maintenance is payable in proportion to the Parents’ incomes and include all costs for raising the child. Any and all actual expenses of the child at both parents’ homes are then calculated and factored into the required child maintenance payments.
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When considering the amount of maintenance to be claimed, the following should be taken into account:
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expenses for food, clothing, accommodation, medical care and education; and
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provision for electricity, water, linen, cutlery and the washing of clothes.
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The standard of living and financial means of the parents should also be considered when calculating the amount of maintenance.
SPOUSAL MAINTENANCE AS PART OF DIVORCE
Neither spouse is automatically entitled to spousal maintenance on divorce. Our law favours the ‘clean break’ principle, which basically means that after a divorce the parties should become economically independent of each other as soon as possible. The Court, however, does have the discretionary power to award spousal maintenance if necessary. During a marriage, each spouse owes to the other a reciprocal duty of support, provided that the person claiming such support is actually in need of it and that the other spouse can actually provide it. Neither spouse has a statutory right to maintenance. The language in the Divorce Act is clearly discretionary and the ex-spouse seeking an award for maintenance has no right as such. The discretionary power of the Court to make a maintenance award includes the power to make no award at all.
As mentioned, our law favours the ‘clean break’ principle, which means that after a divorce the parties should become economically independent of each other as soon as possible. However, the Court may award spousal maintenance in certain circumstances. For example, if one of the spouses was the sole breadwinner, the Court may award spousal maintenance in favour of the other spouse.
