Child Maintenance

Child support or child maintenance is financial support that helps towards a child’s everyday living costs. Payment is made by the absent parent to the parent, caregiver or guardian, with whom the children live – the parent with residence.


Both parents are liable to maintain the child under law. The amount of financial support an absent parent should contribute for the welfare of any children varies widely as it is reliant on so many different factors. These include income, assets, age of the child, levels of savings, pension contributions, any special health needs the child has and any additional support already being given to support the home where the child lives.

Wife Maintenance

Women’s Charter also empowers the court to order a man to pay maintenance to his wife or ex- wife. Factors, pursuant to S114 of Women’s Charter, that could influence the maintenance amount includes:

• 1. The earning power of both parties, previously, currently and in the future.
• 2. The assets owned by either and both parties.
• 3. The financial needs, obligations and responsibilities of both parties in the future. (If the wife is awarded the care and control of the child, she would also need to bear the financial burden of raising the child, whilst the child would require maintenance too. Therefore, the husband may be ordered to pay for such sums.)
• 4. The standard of living enjoyed by the family before the marriage broke down.
• 5. The age of the parties and the duration of the marriage.
• 6. The contributions made by each party to the family.
• 7. Any potential losses suffered by the parties as a result of the marriage.

With the new 2016 amendments to the Women’s Charter, husbands can apply for maintenance if he is incapacitated by a physical or mental disability, before or during the course of marriage, and as a result, unable to earning a living to support himself.


Ideally you should have child maintenance looked at and sorted out at the same time as spousal maintenance as part of agreeing a financial settlement.

At Yeo & Associates LLC, we offer a unique alternative to go to Court to reach agreement – Neutral Mediation.

This is one of the added value services at Yeo & Associates LLC. Neutral mediation is for you if you are seeking a cost-effective and time-saving way to complete your divorce and resolve family conflicts disputes without the stress and cost of a formal court proceeding. Yeo & Associates LLC enjoys excellent success rate in reaching an acceptable compromises with your spouse regarding property division, maintenance or child custody and access issues etc.


In some cases, you cannot reach an agreement with your spouse even with the help of a lawyer. The next step is to let the court deal with your matter and decide on your case. This is when costs can begin to escalate.


Yeo & Associates LLC is careful with the pricing of legal service and we pride ourselves as the “Ambassador of Affordability” and provider of high quality legal service.


For specific amounts, you must either reach an agreement between both parties amicably, often with the help of your divorce solicitor.