Pretoria - The North Gauteng High Court has granted an order that a former husband who was in arrears with maintenance for his two children, not to access the money from the the sale of his house until he settles his maintenance debt of about R200 000.
Judge LR Adams granted an order in favour of the former wife and said that once the sale of the house had been concluded, the money must be held in the trust account of the attorneys as security for the payment of the maintenance.
When the money is in the trust account, it will give the former wife time to calculate how much she is owed as she was not sure when approaching the court for an interdict.
According to court papers, the former wife on August 25, 2021, notified the former husband through her attorney that he’s in arrears with his maintenance payments to the tune of R188 067.
The former husband indicated that he was experiencing employment and financial difficulties. He said he was retrenched twice but at least tried to pay whatever he could from his meagre resources and even from the proceeds of personal loans obtained from members of his family.
Instead, he proposed that he be allowed to make monthly payments of R10 000 per month.
The former wife said the amount which had to be paid was R18 000 per month, meaning there will be a shortfall of R8 000, “this shortfall, so the applicant claims, she had to foot...the first respondent continues to make short payments in respect of his maintenance obligations, which, needless to say, exacerbates the situation,” read the court papers.
She continued in her submissions that the former husband is liquidating his assets and after that, he will most likely sequestrate himself and claim that the cash was used to pay off other debts and there will be little or no chance of her recouping any maintenance money owed to her.
Judge Adams said the former wife had the right to the net proceeds of the sale of the property in order to receive payment of the maintenance.
“This property is the only asset in the estate of the first respondent that would effectively settle his indebtedness to her relative to the arrear maintenance payable to her in terms of an order of this court.
“She may also be able to proceed with the issue of a warrant of execution to attach property belonging to the first respondent once she has calculated the amount of the arrear maintenance.
“Until such time as the exact amount of the maintenance is calculated, the applicant is entitled to an order preserving the proceeds of the sale,” read the judgement.
IOL