Child Maintenance – your rights and obligations

In order to determine the extent of each parent’s obligation, one must first assess each parties’ respective income and expenditure. The parties must then assess the reasonable expenses incurred for the child. Typically, these are separated into 3 broad categories:

1. Educational expenses
   School fees, aftercare fees, extra mural activities, books, stationary, uniforms, excursions and outings etc…;
2. Medical expenses
   Medical aid premiums, gap cover premiums, medicines and any other medical, dental, ophthalmic or related costs which are not covered by a medical aid scheme;
3. Day-to-day expenses
   Household expenses including items like Rent/Bond repayments, utilities, levies, insurance, maintenance of the property, groceries, toiletries, clothing, vehicle maintenance, fuel, telephone, internet, domestic workers, television licenses and subscriptions, pets etc…,

Although educational and medical costs can be directly attributed to the child, when it comes to the day-to-day expenses it is more difficult to separate the adult’s and child’s costs. The rule of thumb is that household expenses are allocated as 2 parts per adult and 1 part per child. The reasonableness of all costs has to be assessed with reference to the family’s standard of living and affordability.

Once the child’s average monthly cost is calculated, the obligation is generally divided pro-rata according to each parent’s income.

For example, if the parent 1 earns R5 000.00 p/m and parent 2 earns R10 000 p/m and the child’s needs are R4 000.00 p/m – parent 1 should contribute R1 333.33 p/m and parent 2 should contribute R2 666.67 p/m. (Parent’s income / combined income x child’s need).

These formulae/rules are just some of the general methods used when determining child maintenance obligations. All relevant circumstances are taken into account and the law is applied objectively to each unique set of facts.