Despite the government’s best efforts to ensure children complete their schooling, according to the latest data, the student retention rate dropped to 79% from Year 10 to Year 12 in 2022. This means that around 20% of children drop out of school before Year 12.
If you’re paying child support and your child becomes one of the 20%, does this mean you can cease making child support payments?
The rules around ending a child support assessment
In Australia, the law stipulates that child support must be paid until the child reaches the age of 18 or until they complete their secondary schooling if they turn 18 before the end of the school year.
There are, however, certain circumstances that may warrant early termination of child support. There are also circumstances where adult child maintenance may need to be paid after the child turns 18.
If a child drops out of school, it doesn’t automatically mean your obligation to pay child support ends. Child support is intended to cover all the expenses that come with raising a child, including food, housing, clothing, medical and schooling. This means that a child support assessment will continue even if a child is not in school – this will be the case until a child support terminating event occurs.
The following events typically terminate a child support assessment:
- Your child turns 18. However, if they’re still in high school, you or your co-parent can apply to Services Australia to extend the assessment. Such application must be made before the child turns 18;
- Someone else legally adopts the child;
- Your child gets married or enters a de facto relationship;
- Either the child, the parent liable to pay child support or the parent entitled to receive child support dies;
- The child is no longer present in, or ordinarily resident in Australia, and not an Australian Citizen;
- The liable parent is no longer resident in Australia (although there are circumstances where child support can continue to be collected if the liable parent is resident in a ‘reciprocating jurisdiction’);
- Both parents cease to have at least 35% care of the child and there is no non-parent carer entitled to receive child support for the child;
- The receiving parent applies to end the assessment, which the child support agency approves.
- You present a binding child support agreement that the child support agency accepts (and which embodies a private arrangement for the payment of child support between parents).
A child leaving school earlier than Year 12 is therefore not, in and of itself, a ground to terminate a child support assessment, and stop paying child support.
Can you apply to vary to a child support assessment?
If a change in circumstances occurs which is relevant to your child support assessment, you can notify the Child Support Agency of that change and ask it to change the assessment. It is also possible to make an application to change the assessment in ‘special circumstances.’
Suppose your child quits school and starts working and earning their own independent income. You can apply to Services Australia for a change of assessment on the basis that it is “unjust and inequitable because of the income, earning capacity, property and financial resources of the child.” Should the Agency deny your application, and you continue to assert that the assessment ought to be changed, you can seek to review that decision (albeit that taking advice from a family lawyer is advisable before proceeding with any review).
What happens if you don’t pay child support?
While you wait for the outcome of your change of assessment request, keep paying your child support. Failure to do so can lead to penalties on outstanding amounts, and collection action by the Agency. Services Australia has the power to recover payments by deducting it from your bank account or tax refund. You could even face an application by the Registrar to recover the arrears of child support (for example, by selling your assets) or you can be prevented from travelling overseas on a holiday, until the child support is paid or proper arrangements are in place for the payment of any arrears owing.
Using your own child support agreement
If you and your co-parent are able to agree on what child support should be paid (in what form, and amounts), you can prepare a child support agreement, which outlines the conditions under which child support could cease.
In this agreement, you are able to specify the amount of child support required and whether it will be in the form of periodic cash payments to the receiving parent or direct payments to a service-provider for things such as school fees, extra-curricular activities or medical insurance.
Your agreement can stipulate the circumstances in which child support may be varied, or end. For example, if the care arrangements change or the receiving parent’s financial situation improves, the child support agreement can provide that the level of child support payable reduces to a lesser amount.
One such situation which can be covered by a change in circumstances provision is what is to occur if a child is no longer attending school – for example, that child may no longer have school fees, but may instead have fees and expenses associated with a vocational course or trade apprenticeship – a child support agreement can specify that these things are paid in place of private school fees.
Consult an experienced family lawyer who can help you draft a binding child support agreement that’s fair and in the best interest of the child.
As a specialist family law firm serving the Gold Coast, BGM Family Lawyers can help you prepare Child Support Agreements and navigate the child support system. To discuss your situation, call 1300 246 529 (1300 BGM LAW), email info.bgm@bgm.legal or fill in this form, and one of our child support experts will be in touch.
