Child Support - Child Maintenance
- In family law and government policy, child support or child maintenance is the ongoing practice for a regular payment to be made for the financial care and support of children from a relationship or marriage that has ended.
- In most cases the non-custodial parent is the one who makes these payments to the parent who has custody of the child/children, though may in some cases be a guardian or even the government.
- Typically there is no gender requirement to child support, for example, a father may pay a mother or a mother may pay a father.
- Where there is joint custody, the child is considered to have two custodial parents and no non-custodial parents, therefore one custodial parent will be required to pay the other custodial parent.
- In family law, child support is often arranged as part of a divorce or seperation.
The right to child support and the responsibilities of parents to provide such support have been internationally recognised.
In the UK The Child Support Agency (CSA) is a government service to make sure that parents who live apart from their children contribute financially to their upkeep by paying child maintenance. |
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