Suspending or ending a Child Support agreement due to care 277-18061455

Commencing from 1 July 2018 (15 May 2019 for WA ex-nuptial cases), an agreement will end for a child if, the payee under an agreement ceases to be an eligible carer of the child (that is, their care percentage in the assessment is less than 35%), there has not been a terminating event, and the agreement does not provide for the parties’ roles to swap when there is a care change.

Before the agreement is ended, it may be suspended for the first 28 days after the payee ceases to be an eligible carer or 26 weeks in some circumstances. A suspension period is provided so that if the care of the child changes again in that period and the original payee again has at least 35% care of the child, the agreement can restart for the child.

The agreement may end without a suspension period if Child Support is notified of the care change more than 28 days (but less than 26 weeks) after the event and a longer 26 week suspension period does not apply. In these cases, the agreement termination will be pended to allow contact with the customers to discuss if they want a longer suspension period. If Child Support is notified of the care change more than 26 weeks after the event, the agreement will end.

The agreement end will always take effect from the day the payee under the agreement ceased to be an eligible carer, that is the date when the care percentage was applied in the assessment.

Note: references to the payee under an agreement ceasing to be an eligible carer means the dates the payee’s care percentage of less than 35% applies in the child support assessment, according to the relevant date of effect rules for changes in care.

If the care change happened before 1 July 2018 and was notified:

• before 30 December 2018, the pre 1 July 2018 date of effect rules will apply
• after 30 December 2018, the new 1 July 2018 date of effect rules will apply

For WA ex-nuptial cases, if a care change occurred or is reported on or after 15 May 2019, the new care date of effect rules apply.

An agreement suspension period can be for up to 26 weeks in the following circumstances:

• the agreement includes a clause for a longer suspension, see Interpreting and making a decision on a Child Support agreement
• all parties to the agreement request a longer suspension period:
• requests must be made on a day after the payee ceased to be an eligible carer up to 26 weeks after the day the payee ceased to be an eligible carer
• requests can be made on the phone or in writing
• Child Support determines that there are special circumstances concerning the care change – see Child Support Guide Chapter 2.7.6 Suspending a Child Support Agreement for more information, a link is located on the References page

Note: legislation allows for a suspension period of 28 days or 26 weeks only. If an agreement includes a clause for a suspension longer than 28 days but less than 26 weeks (for example 12 weeks), the agreement will be suspended for 26 weeks. However if the agreement includes a clause that it will terminate at the end of the 12 week period, this will be administered like any other type of agreement termination clause, see Managing changes affecting a Child Support agreement.

If an agreement includes provisions for a lump sum payment to be credited against the child support liability, the agreement will be suspended or terminated due to a care change.

If there is any credit remaining on the lump sum payment after the agreement is suspended or ends and the original paying parent continues to have an ongoing child support liability or they have an ongoing liability in the future, the remaining credit will continue to be drawn down.

Manual processing will be required to make sure the credit continues to be drawn down. Service Officers in the Agreements and Court Order team should escalate to a Service Support Officer (SSO) for assistance.

See Assessing a new Child Support agreement for more information about agreements with different types of provisions.

The Resources page contains manual processing instructions and examples to help process agreement suspensions and terminations when the payee under the agreement ceases to be an eligible carer of a child and a terminating event has not occurred.