| Both the mother and the father are obliged by law to support their children financially in accordance with their ability to do so. Normally, jurisdictions have child support standards in effect, which provide a formula for determining child support grounded on a proportion of each parent's gross income.
Such issues are seldom a concern for the court when parents are bound together by marriage or committed relationship. But when parents end their relationship or live separately from their children, the courts are normally required to establish the sum of child maintenance a non-custodial parent must pay. This issue can be settled by agreement or by fighting it out in the courtroom. Like alimony, child maintenance payments, may be incorporated into the divorce judgment or may be determined in a marital separation agreement. You can avoid making child support a contested issue, by both parents deciding on the appropriate amount of child support and making this agreement part of a marital separation agreement.
If a non-custodial parent has other legal duties, they will also be looked into in determining child maintenance. For instance, if a parent is paying child support from a previous relationship, it will be taken into consideration. Necessities of life, including food and rent will also be considered by the court. Nonetheless, child maintenance payments will not be decreased to make it easier for the non-custodial parent to make discretionary payments.
For the court to establish the proper amount of child maintenance, both parties are to fill in a financial declaration. Each parent will be required to completely reveal their income, the nature and extent of their property holdings, including current accounts, investments and real property and their financial obligations. The court will rely heavily on these documents in making the order and, hence, it is in the children's interests that the declarations be filled in completely and honestly.
Parents who refuse to pay child maintenance will be punished. If the custodial parent sues the nonpaying parent, he or she may be taken to court. |
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