Spouses are, more often than not, left in a financial lurch during divorce proceedings, which as we all know, may take months or even years to finalise.
Rule 43 of the High Court’s rules and Rule 34 of the Magistrates Court’s rules empower such spouses (including same-sex marriages) to approach the courts for interim maintenance or maintenance pendent lite, as it is also commonly referred to.
This process is brought to court employing motion proceedings and is subject to normal litigation procedures, except that it may not be appealed or taken on review. This order may only be varied once a significant change in his/her circumstances occurred.
An applicant or respondent will subsequently have to abide by any order granted by the court until such time that the divorce is finalised. Litigants will subsequently have to approach this process with caution and an experienced family attorney’s services should be enrolled for this purpose.
An applicant may claim both spousal maintenance and child maintenance from the other and the normal principles of maintenance will apply, except that the court may order that one spouse contributes to the legal cost of the other to ensure that this spouse can afford to properly defend himself/herself during the divorce proceedings.
