Child Maintenance

In these testing times, employees have suffered salary cuts, retrenchments and various other difficulties.

It is important to remember that your contribution to your child's maintenance is reviewable if your financial situation changes.

In order to calculate your contribution the following calculation is followed:

Firstly calculate the monthly reasonable needs of the child. The general rule of thumb is that the child’s share of the common expenses in the household is determined by allocating one-part per child and two-parts per adult or older child.

E.g. Rental of R 10 000.00 with one parent (two parts) and one minor child (one part).

1. the child's contribution = 1/3

2. the parent's contribution = 2/3.

Consequently, the child's portion will amount to R 3 333.33.

This calculation will have to be done for all the household expenses together with the expenses of the child (e.g. school fees) in order to calculate the child's monthly reasonable expenses.

Only once the child’s reasonable monthly needs have been determined will one be able to establish the contribution that each parent is required to make to meet those needs.

The formula applied in practice to determine this contribution is as follows:

parent’s gross income child’s needs

_____________________________ X _____________

total gross income of both parents 1

= Contribution

The maintenance may need to be adjusted regularly, depending on the changing needs of the child or the financial position of the parents.

If you require more details on maintenance proceedings, please feel free to contact us and we will advise you accordingly.

We assist many parents with the court process, we will complete the documentation on your behalf and attend the court hearings with you.