When you need financial help to support your child, who can be forced to contribute?A recent High Court judgment, which has received extensive media attention because of its negative impact on the right of grandparents to claim foster care grants, has shone a spotlight on the question of who has a legal “duty of support” towards children. In broad terms, the following are liable:
- Biological parents (whether married or not),
- Adoptive parents,
- Then (failing parents able to provide support in part or in full) grandparents – both maternal and paternal, regardless of whether or not the parents were married,
- Failing them, great-grandparents,
- Failing them, siblings.
Note that step-parents have only a limited duty of support in “narrowly defined circumstances”, whilst other relatives (such as aunts and uncles) have no legal duty of support at all.Granny and Grandpa – beware!
Your retirement funding is in for a serious knock if, say, your son divorces or fathers a child out of wedlock (or is alleged to have done so) and can’t make regular child maintenance payments. And if that happens to you, you are in for a long-term obligation at precisely the wrong time of your life!
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