Both Parents Must Support Children

The duty to support children rests in the first place upon both parents – or one of them if only that one has any money. If they cannot provide, the grandparents may have to maintain the children.

There is no scale of required maintenance payments.

The children must be maintained at a standard that is reasonable for that family, in its particular circumstances. There is a huge difference between maintenance paid by ‘rich’ parents and that paid by ‘poor’ parents.

The amount of monthly maintenance payments is usually dictated by the amount of income that parents receive, but in some cases they may have to use their capital if they have insufficient income.

Parents have a lifetime duty of support for their children – except where they can support themselves. If a ‘child’ marries, its first claim for support is against its spouse, then the parents.

As soon as children become self-supporting, the parents may be released from the duty to pay maintenance.

The custodian parent has a claim against the other parent for a maintenance contribution, as long as the child remains a minor (unmarried and below 21 years). This may extend beyond age 21 depending on what the Divorce Agreement (if there is one) says.

Adult ‘children’ have a claim for support against their parents, but the standard is lower than the claim of a child. Parents must give children the best possible start in life – depending on their standard of living – but must merely provide adult ‘children’ with the bare necessities.

This is just the basic stuff – there is much more to know, many more articles, guides and even maintenance application forms in DIVORCElink. Read on!