Assessing a new Child Support agreement 277-02010010

Item

Example

1

Alice and John have an existing assessment for child Jane. Alice has 80% care and John has 20% care.

An application is lodged to accept the parents' child support agreement. The agreement includes the following provisions:

• John will pay Alice $100 per week for Jane from 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2025
• The child support payable by John will continue even if Alice's care of Jane reduces below 35%

This provision specifically states that Alice will receive child support when they are not an eligible carer. This agreement must be refused.

2

Jo and Val have an existing assessment for child Kim. Jo has 80% care and Val has 20% care.

An application is lodged to accept the parents' child support agreement. The agreement includes the following provisions:

• Val will pay Jo $100 per week for Kim from 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2025
• The child support payable by Val will continue even if Val gains more care of Kim

This provision does not necessarily mean that the parties intend the payments to continue when Jo ceases to be an eligible carer. For example, if Jo currently has 80% care and Val has 20% care, the parties intention may be that the payments will continue even if Jo's care decreases to 60% and Val's care increases to 40%. Assuming the parties confirm their intention is for payments not to continue if Jo ceases to be an eligible carer, then this agreement could be accepted (if all other requirements are met).

Note: before accepting an agreement where it is unclear if the parties intend payments to be made even though a payee ceases to be an eligible carer (as per the example), contact both parties to confirm their intention. Unless it is specifically intended for payments to continue despite a payee ceasing to be an eligible carer, the agreement will not be in breach of section 85.

If Jo's care did later drop below 35%, the agreement would still be suspended/terminated in accordance with the usual rules.

3

Lee and Chris have an existing assessment for child Alex. Lee has 80% care and Chris has 20% care.

An application is lodged to accept the parents' child support agreement. The agreement includes the following provisions:

• By way of child support, Chris will pay Lee $100 per week from 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2025
• By way of non-periodic child support, Chris and Lee will each pay 50% of Alex's private school fees from 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2025
• The payment of periodic and non-periodic child support payable by Lee and Chris as per this agreement will reduce any liability under an administrative assessment by 100%

Provisions 2 and 3 create a non-periodic payment obligation by Lee in favour of Chris. As Chris is not an eligible carer, this agreement must be refused.

4

Andrew and Sarah lodge an application to accept their initiating binding child support agreement, for children Peter and Drew. Andrew has 80% care of Peter and Drew and Sarah has 20% care of Peter and Drew. The agreement includes the following provisions:

• Through periodic child support, Sarah will pay Andrew $100 per week for the children
• Through non-periodic child support, Andrew will pay 100% of Drew and Peter's private school fees

In this example, it is possible to determine that there is 1 agreement in which Sarah is liable to pay a periodic amount to Andrew (agreement 1), and a second agreement in which Andrew is liable to pay a non-periodic amount to Sarah (agreement 2). As only agreement 2 contains a provision that contravenes section 85, because Sarah is not an eligible carer, the Registrar could accept agreement 1 and refuse agreement 2.

Contact all parties to the agreement when determining if an agreement should be treated as if it contained 2 separate agreements. Generally, an agreement will be treated as containing 2 distinct separate agreements if it is clearly stated within the document, and/or both parties agree that the document should be treated as if it contained separate agreements. See Step 1, Table 2 of Suspending or ending a Child Support agreement due to care.