Seven year worth of child maintenance would be like winning the Lotto

Could you imagine recovering seven years worth of child maintenance?

Maz over at Caffeine and Fairy Dust recently wrote a post about the new legislation in terms of child maintenance and the non payment of and or defaulting on payment.  You can read more about it here.

Bottom line:  Parents who default on child maintenance are blacklisted and blocked from getting credit while owing maintenance.

Sounds impressive, doesn’t it?

I am not holding my breath…

The maintenance court is full of desperate people trying to make ends meet and provide for their kid(s).  The corridors are filled to the brim with people staying in queues, waiting.

• As it is, staff are over worked and under-supported in their tasks.  Asking them to fill out another form, is like adding another 20 minutes waiting time per person in the queue
• Procedures.  The court follows a tightly list of instructions.  If x happens, follow with y.  If 123 has happened then follow through with ABC.  I know that is the right way of doing things.  A person can’t be penalized for defaulting on a maintenance payment once.
• Procedures leads to time wasted.  You need to wait 4-6 weeks for a person to be summoned to court.  If the person isn’t present in court, they get summoned again.  Another 4-6 weeks down the drain.
• When you finally have the person present, the court decides on a date to start the trail.  I.e.  Let’s waste another half a month.
• It is easier to climb Mount Everest while holding your breath than it is to get a garnished order on the biodad’s salary

My personal experience in the maintenance court

A trip to the maintenance court is never quick or easy.  I reached a point where maintenance was a bonus.  It wasn’t a reliable source of income.  Wasting away my days at the maintenance court was more than I could handle.  And yet I kept fighting for my kid, out of principle and because I wanted more for him.

I finally stopped fighting because my emotions were getting the best of me.  I realised my kid needed me more than any money the biodad could pay.  It has been 5 years [five years?] since I have put my foot anywhere near the maintenance court.  I am so grateful that I haven’t needed to sit my foot near the court and by the Grace of God, I am never going back!

I digged into my blog archives.  I shared quite a bit of the journey here and I was pretty surprised at how emotional I got reading and rehashing those memories.  There were two posts in particular that stood out, one was about the general experience and what is involved in becoming a regular at the maintenance court.  The other was when the Sperm Donor was crowned Father of the Year making a maintenance payment two months in a row while after months of non-payment.

 I wish I could be more optimistic

1. I don’t think the maintenance courts have the capacity to implement and follow through on the new legislation.
2. I don’t think the really bad defaulters – the cases where the money is really needed – the legislation will have an effect.  These candidates won’t have an issue with being blacklisted, chances are they already are.

Still, I sincerely hope the new legislation has a positive impact on our nation’s children.

My hope for any parent standing in the corridors of a maintenance court, is a positive outcome.  Stay strong, keep level-headed.

Side note: I have no idea how much money seven years of maintenance would amount to. Also, I am under no illusion that I will never win the lotto. That would require you to play the lotto. Fruitless expenditure!

Am I up for this: A Maintenance Court Sequel

Over the weekend I received an email from a single mom with maintenance related questions.  I am very grateful and humbled to admit that my life has changed so much and the maintenance money isn’t an absolute necessity that I have to have.  The emails between this mom and I, did however get me to think and I could almost say relive some of those anxious and infuriating emotions.  

Some of the details of our emails I would like to relay here: 

In my initial reply I mentioned that the maintenance court is a lengthy process.  I mentioned that the more information you have – contact numbers, addresses: work address, home address, girlfriend’s address – the better your chances of the person receiving the summons.  

The delay in receiving the summons from a person in Pretoria to another person in Pretoria is between 4-6 weeks.  If the person does not receive the summons, he will not know to be in court.  And you will need to have him summoned again.  This is a torturous waste of time that I have experiences twice in my life (consecutively) 

In the event that the Sperm-Donor (SD) skipped a payment and you want to make the court aware of this or sue him for the outstanding.  You will need to wait until he has skipped the maintenance payments for a minimum of two full months before the court takes you seriously.  This was how it was in my case at least!  

When I opened the case against my SD, he was summons to court, on the first encounter he was asked whether he will represent himself, whether he will appoint a lawyer and that he can apply for legal aid.  We were then given another date to be back in court again (10-14 days later).  It is an up and down, back and forth kind of experience.  

Over the 3 months of going back and forth to the court, he managed to pay the maintenance and a little bit towards the outstanding maintenance.  On the day that we were about to set a date for the start of the trial, the court manager told me that the best thing for me to do was to withdraw the lawsuit because it looked good on paper that he had paid the maintenance for three consecutive months.  His legal representative drew up a document advising how he would settle the outstanding money. 

What I am trying to say, is that the court doesn’t just garnish salaries left, right and center.  They follow a procedure, covering all grounds.  I think for the most part, all I am doing is to keep a paper trail; the SD is bound to start running out of excuses at some point in time.

The maintenance court experience is at no time fun.  It is hard!  If you are up for it, my best advice would be, do not hold your breath thinking things will work out in a month or two.  Find an alternative way of managing financially.  I have learnt not to bargain on that money, if I get the maintenance, bonus I settle debt, I splurge a bit on things we don’t really need, I save that money.  I don’t bargain on it and I certainly do not include it when working on my budget.  

**  What I haven’t had time to deal with emotionally or physically is for the SD to have skipped the maintenance payment and the portion of the outstanding money he was suppose to pay at the beginning of September.  So the question in my thoughts is simple – Am I up for this?  **

The trick is in the paper-trail:

It has been pretty much a hectic day for me.  This morning the Maintenance Court (Court O) was graced with my presence.  Court O is a very scary place to be honest!  In the past I found myself in the basement of the court with million of other individuals crammed into a tiny space.  Your name is called and you (and the sperm-donor) along with a maintenance officer talk things through!

 

Court O is on the second floor, in a proper court – the type you read about in books.  The type you see in movies!  There is no list to confirm whether you are at the right place or not.  You wait (that much couldn’t possibly change – maintenance court and wait may as well be the same thing!!). 

So while waiting in the corridors you talk to moms with (hopefully) more experience than you do.  You hear their stories and you share your situation.  The stories that come out is honestly shocking!

The Sperm-Donor was there.  Well he was late, but better late than never I suppose!  He didn’t even say “good morning, how is my kid?”  Instead he sat in the spot I was sitting in (I was early) and left me to sit in the front row, which was quite exciting in the end (you get close up’s of all the dad’s sperm-donors).  After what felt like ages (I suppose I should count myself lucky, before morning-tea) my sperm-donor was called to the stand.

I wouldn’t call him highly intelligent or anything, but I think he followed the pattern of the other dads who said that a.) they would pay lawyers or b.) they would apply for legal aid.  Pity he didn’t follow some of the dads who paid the arrear maintenance before coming to court!  Oh well!  I’m sure he doesn’t realise how little he needs to earn in order to qualify for legal aid.  Then again maybe he is still unemployed in which case the judge should k@k him out for wasting time with legal aid when he could be looking for a job!

In short:  I’m going to the maintenance court again on the 7th of May!  And I am absolutely thrilled!

In the end I think the paper trail will speak for itself,  until then all you can do is vas-byt and to follow the procedure! 

Photo Credit