Sharing School Fees and other Child Related Expenses

With the New Year approaching, there may be a pressing need to make arrangements for school and extracurricular activities. For separated parents, the responsibility for the costs of these arrangements can sometimes lead to confusion or disagreement.

The Child Support Agency will generally assess separated parents for their child support obligations under the Child Support (Assessment) Act which does not specifically make provision for these additional expenses. There is a review process to request consideration of these other costs, but the process can be time consuming, requires evidence and there is no guaranteed outcome.

Alternately parents can enter into an Agreement to provide for ‘non-periodic’ costs such as school, medical and extracurricular costs. The Agreement can include the responsibility for each cost, for example 50/50 or any other variation, and methods of payment such as to the provider directly or to the other parent.

Parents can enter into a Limited or Binding Agreement. Limited Agreements do not require independent legal advice, however you must have an assessment of child support in place and they can only last for three years. Binding Agreements require each party to have independent legal advice as they can only be changed by Court Order or another agreement terminating the first one.

If you are considering entering into an Agreement, you should obtain some preliminary legal advice from a Family Lawyer to ensure you cover all issues relevant to your circumstances. These agreements can also contain provisions to replace the periodic obligations for child support, however there are circumstances in which this may not be accepted by the Child Support Agency or where it may impact on other benefits such as the Family Tax Benefit.

As your first step, the Department of Human Services website (www.humanservices.gov.au) has useful information regarding these Agreements.

Written by Gillian Yeend from Yeend & Associates.Yeend & Associates is a specialist family law firm located in Gungahlin and Canberra City.