Divorce and maintenance of the children
Each parent has a legal duty to maintain the minor biological child born of the marriage. A minor child is a child under the age of 18 years. Maintenance must be paid according to what the respective income of each party is. In determining the amount of maintenance payable the court will look at various factors such as the age of each child, the state of health of the child and educational needs of each child.
It would be prudent for a party who wishes to get divorced to make a list of the expenses of the minor child. These expenses would include groceries, rent, electricity, medical, schooling, clothes, transport, domestic workers, aftercare fees, extramural activities, and any other day-to-day expenses in the child’s life.
A maintenance order can be obtained before a divorce order is granted by means of a “Rule 32 Application” in a lower court or a “Rule 43 Application” in the High court. These applications are available even before instituting a legal action when the parties are married.
A party to a divorce action can also bring an application in the maintenance court, without using the abovementioned applications. Without being married a biological parent can also bring a maintenance application against the father or mother of the biological child.
Normally when there is already a maintenance order in place before a divorce hearing the courts will stick to that order at the trial of the divorce.
This article was written by Peter Baker, a divorce lawyer in Cape Town - South Africa