Female2Female

Surviving Maintenance Court

Posted on 04. Mar, 2010 by Laura in Uncategorized

Maintenance court is not a fun way to spend a day but I believe it is important to go through the process.

I went through it and while many believe I should have fought for more, I got what I wanted. Having gone through it, I can say I firmly believe in the process. I believe our family court system is fair and does have the best interest of the child as their primary objective.

If you are going to go through with it there are a few things you need to be aware of and remember.

• Do not go to court angry with your child’s father. Do not go with the intention of hurting/spiting him in any way. When you go your sole reason must be your children. You are fighting for money for them.
• Set realistic goals. Work out carefully what it costs you to have your children living with you and then work out an amount from there. Do not go and ask for R10 000 when you have one child who stays with your mother in the day or when you know he is currently working part time and doesn’t even clear half of that. YES he must pay an amount but be realistic.
• Be organised. Have all your documentation organised neatly and know what your expenses are. When you are asked a question on how much something costs you need to know the answer and not have to fumble through slips.
• Remain calm. Take a friend/family member with who will be able to squeeze your hand and remind you to breathe. The angrier you get the less likely you are to make your case.
• Do not take your children with, if at all possible. Having a screaming child attached to your hip while you try and say your say is not going to win you brownie points. Trust me they court officials are parents too – they know its hard.
• Be prepared to wait. Be prepared for a little disorganisation. It is the nature of the beast. There are way too many women fighting for money so there are many queues and many dads not pitching and lawyers forcing their way in. Don’t be bullied but understand there will be waiting and there will be confusion.

The process may vary but the process I followed was as follows

• Get a court date from the maintenance court. I waited about 2 hours for this but purely because I had to go home to get the children’s birth certificates so I lost my spot in the queue. Had I not had to do that it would have been 30-45 minutes but I was there as they opened.
• The date is usually 3-4 months away. I was told this is so they have time to locate the father as sometimes it can be a difficult thing to do.
• On the day you start with mediation. The court official will try and reach an agreement (which she did in our case).
• You then get the documentation signed off by a judge and it then becomes an order of the court.
• Had we not reached an agreement with the mediator we would have received a court date and appeared before a judge who would have decided for us.
• I arrived at the court as it opened and was finished by lunch time so while there was lots of waiting in between it was unbearable.

Information

• If you are in Cape Town you will find a list of magistrate courts here
• If you are anywhere else this site will help with the forms you need and contact details to find where your nearest magistrate court is!

Tags: custody, Divorce, featured, maintenance, maintenance court