South Africa - Change Maintenance Amount for Child Care

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Procedure

Apply In-Person:

1. To apply for a Change in Maintenance Amount for Child Care in person, the person who wants the maintenance amount must visit the nearest Magistrate’s court or office where your maintenance order was made.
2. The contacts and address information of the Magistrate’s court can be found in the following link: Link
3. Visit the office of the Magistrate’s court and request an application form to apply for a change in the maintenance received for the child in your care, from the concerned department.
4. Complete the application form with relevant details and information as required appropriately and legibly, to avoid refusals.
5. Make sure that you have all the documents listed in the “Required documents” section of this page.
6. Attach all those documents with the completed application form and proceed to submit it to the Maintenance officer. Also pay the fees at the office (if any).
7. Then, the application and the attached documents will be forwarded to respective departments to get validated by various concerned authorities.
8. Once when all the furnished information is found correct and stated reason is found sufficient, the maintenance officer will make amendments for the change in the maintenance amount.

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Required Documents

• Completed application form
• Complete statement of Income
• Complete statement of Expenditure
• Statement of reason for change in Maintenance amount
• Identification document for the applicant and child (if applicable)
• Copy of Maintenance order (if required)

Office Locations & Contacts

Department of Justice and Constitutional Development Head Office
Physical Adsress: Momentum Centre, 329
Pretorius Street,
Pretoria,
0001
South Africa
Postal Adsress:Private Bag X81
Pretoria,
0001
South Africa
Tel: 080 002 0007
Email:[email protected]
Website link

Eligibility

• The receiver or payer, any of them can apply for a change in the Maintenance.
• The person applying to claim a change in maintenance must have a sufficient reason for the claim to be approved.

Fees

Please contact the office of the Magistrate’s court where you apply, for the fees structure.

Validity

Explain the time until which the certificate/document is valid.
e.g. Birth Certificate Valid Forever

Documents to Use

Application forms will be available at any office of the Magistrate’s court.

Sample Documents

Please attach sample completed documents that would help other people.

Processing Time

Please explain processing time taken in obtaining the document/certificate.

Related Videos

Videos explaining the procedure or to fill the applications.
Attach videos using the following tag <&video type='website'>video ID|width|height<&/video&> from external websites.
Please remove the '&' inside the tags during implementation.
Website = allocine, blip, dailymotion, facebook, gametrailers, googlevideo, html5, metacafe, myspace, revver,
sevenload, viddler, vimeo, youku, youtube
width = 560, height = 340, Video ID = Can be obtained from the URL of webpage where the video is displayed.
e.g In the following url 'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0US7oR_t3M' Video ID is 'Y0US7oR_t3M'.

Instructions

• A maintenance officer and an investigator will investigate your claim and look into your circumstances.
• The court will serve a summons (a letter instructing a person to come to court) on the respondent (the person against whom the claim is brought) to appear in court on a specific date to discuss the matter.
• The respondent then has a choice between agreeing to pay the maintenance as claimed, or contesting the matter in court.
• If the respondent agrees to pay the maintenance as claimed, a magistrate will review the relevant documentation. He or she will then make an order, and may decide to do so without requiring the parties to appear in court.

Required Information

• Particulars of the Applicant and child
• Identification number
• Contact information
• Residential details
• Expenditure and income information

Need for the Document

The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development has the provision to increase or decrease in the Maintenance amount received by a caretaker of the child concerned on proper application in a prescribed format at the Magistrate court’s office.

Information which might help

• Your view of the other parent's behavior has no effect on your children's right to maintenance.

• You still have to pay maintenance, even if the other parent remarries, is involved in another relationship, does not allow you to see the children or if either party later has more children.

• Your duty to pay maintenance and your right of access to your children is two entirely separate matters and one has no relation to the other. Furthermore, children of either party do not influence the duty to support.

• For more information: Link

Other uses of the Document/Certificate

Please explain what are other uses of obtaining this document/certificate.
e.g. Birth Certificate can be used as proof of identity.

External Links

Link

Others

More information which might help people.