As the Covid-19 lockdown bites into earnings, the legal community is reporting a significant increase in maintenance queries. However, notes a BusinessLIVE report, Advocate Muhammad Abduroaf, of legal advice consultancy Our Lawyer, says parents cannot unilaterally decide to reduce maintenance, and getting a court to revise your maintenance order may not be possible until after the lockdown.

While many are experiencing financial difficulty, the parents who claim that they cannot pay maintenance any longer will have to prove to the court that they had no income, were unable to access any loans, had no assets to sell and were destitute themselves, Abduroaf says.

He warns that someone whose income has been reduced but has two properties and several cars, would be expected to sell those assets to meet their maintenance obligation before claiming an inability to pay.

Felicity Guest, head of support group Child Maintenance Difficulties SA, says although Family Courts have been deemed an essential service, each region determines how their courts will function.

‘People are having different experiences. In certain regions, cases have been heard while in other regions they are not allowed past the entrance security,’ she says.

Abduroaf explains that at all courts currently, you must submit your proposal in writing and the judge decides if it is urgent enough to be heard during lockdown.

‘Even when cases are being heard, it is being done virtually in most cases,’ he says.

Guest says many women in her support group were already not getting maintenance or dealing with arrears before the lockdown.

‘Those that were getting maintenance pre-lockdown are now finding the lockdown is being used as a reason to reduce or totally cut maintenance,’ she says.

Full BusinessLIVE report