Child Support

One of the issues that needs to be dealt with when a family relationship ends is that of child support.

The government has recently attempted to remove some of the uncertainty surrounding this issue by amending the Divorce Act and including a set of Child Support Guidelines. As well as creating tables detailing what support will be payable based solely on the income of the parent rather than the "need" of the child the new amendments also make it much easier to track and collect unpaid maintenance.

However, while this has been a helpful step, it is never completely successful to "force" the contribution of a parent to a child.

As a purely practical matter it is a proven fact that the more involved the non-resident parent is in the lives of the children the more likely it is that child support payments will be made in a timely manner. There is up to a 75% default rate in maintenance payments in most jurisdictions when maintenance is court ordered rather than agreed upon.

While the new guidelines will help to alleviate the inconsistency in Court order maintenance payments there will always be room for those who wish to use the law as a weapon rather than as a tool, to create impossibly tangled and expensive litigation over maintenance issues.

The fact is that financial pressure is the most often cited reason for divorce. In a separation the funds that were unable to support one household are now expected to support two. Also, in a family breakdown there is often the added cost of expensive litigation. If we add to this situation a party who is attempting to use money as leverage to obtain other concessions, such as custody or access, we have a recipe for disaster. This conflict will have a long-term negative impact on all those involved and can have a seriously deleterious effect on the relationship between children and their parents.

Child maintenance settlements which have been negotiated in good faith, and are seen by both parents to be reasonable and necessary for the support and protection of their children, are most likely to be honored by both parents. At the end of such a process the children are more likely to enjoy a higher standard of living in both an economic and an emotional/psychological sense.