Judge sides with father in short-paid maintenance dispute
A judge found that a divorced father of three should be given a break after he short-paid one month’s maintenance to his former wife, as his salary reduction due to Covid-19 left him out of pocket.
According to a Pretoria News report, the man, only identified by his initials as the maintenance dispute involves children, made up for the shortfall when he received his Ters funding.
His former wife, nevertheless, took him to the Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg) for a contempt order as he failed to pay her the full amount in May last year, at the height of the Covid-19 lockdown.
The wife not only wanted her money, but she also wanted the court to imprison her husband for failing to pay that month.
She agreed that the prison sentence could be suspended and only come into force if he again failed to make payment.
But instead of getting her way, the wife’s application was turned down, and she was ordered to foot her husband’s legal costs, on a punitive scale, in defending the application which she had launched.
The wife, who withheld the three children from seeing their father during this time, must now also ensure that he received access to them.
Article disclaimer: While we have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this article, it is not intended to provide final legal advice as facts and situations will differ from case to case, and therefore specific legal advice should be sought with a lawyer.
