Will I pay or receive maintenance?

Two kinds of maintenance

• Child maintenance: support for a child’s needs, such as accommodation, food, clothing and education.
• Spousal maintenance: under Singapore law, this is for a wife or an incapacitated husband.

Child maintenance

Both parents have a duty to maintain, or contribute to maintaining, their children, whichever parent the children live with. The amount should be reasonable, having regard to each parent’s means and station in life.

Until what age? Generally, a child maintenance order doesn’t extend beyond age 21. The court can order maintenance beyond 21 if it’s necessary because the child has a mental or physical disability, is serving full-time national service, is in or about to start education or training, or there are other special circumstances.

Maintenance for a wife or incapacitated husband

On divorce, the court may order maintenance for a former wife or an incapacitated former husband. It might be no maintenance, a nominal sum, a monthly amount (possibly for a fixed period), or a one-time lump sum.

The court aims to place the parties, so far as it is practicable and (having regard to their conduct) just to do so, in the financial position they would have been in had the marriage not broken down.

What the court looks at

The court considers all the circumstances, including:

• each person’s income, earning capacity, property and other financial resources
• financial needs, obligations and responsibilities
• the standard of living before the marriage broke down
• each person’s age and how long the marriage lasted
• any physical or mental disability
• contributions to the family, including looking after the home or caring for the family
• for children, how they were being educated, and how the parents expected them to be educated

Can maintenance change or end?

• Changing it: the court can vary a maintenance order if there was a misrepresentation or mistake of fact, or there has been a material change in circumstances.
• Ending it: ongoing (unsecured) maintenance for a former spouse generally ends on the death of either party, or when the former wife or incapacitated former husband remarries.

Before or without a divorce

You don’t have to be divorcing to ask for maintenance. During the marriage, a wife (or an incapacitated husband) can apply if their spouse has neglected or refused to provide reasonable maintenance, and a parent or guardian who has actual custody of a child can apply if the other parent has neglected or refused to provide reasonable maintenance for that child.