Letter demanding unpaid maintenance

A letter demanding arrear maintenance has two jobs, and only one of them is getting paid. The first is to give the other parent a clear, unarguable statement of what is owed and a date to pay it. The second, which matters if the first fails, is to produce a tidy set of papers to put in front of a maintenance officer. Most of the work here is done by the arrears table, not by the tone.

What this document does and when to use it

This letter is for arrears under an order that already exists, from a Maintenance Court or a divorce court, saying a fixed amount is payable each month. Without an order there is nothing to demand, and the right document is the maintenance application checklist instead.

The letter has no legal force of its own. It is not a court process and nothing happens automatically when the deadline passes. What it does is fix your version of events in writing at a moment when the other parent can still contradict it. If they pay, you have saved yourself a court queue. If they reply with a proposal, you have something in writing to work from. If they say nothing, you walk into the Maintenance Court with the order, the statements, the schedule and proof of delivery, which is exactly the bundle the maintenance officer wants.

Send it as soon as payments stop or fall short, not after six months of being told next week. Small, recent arrears against an employed payer are the easiest thing to recover. Large, old arrears against someone who has changed jobs twice are not.

There is one situation in which you should not send this letter. If there is any history of violence, threats or control between you and the payer, do not deliver it in person and consider going straight to the Maintenance Court instead. The GBV Command Centre is on 0800 428 428 and the police are on 10111 in an emergency.

Before you start: get these facts straight

Find the order. You cannot demand arrears under an order you cannot produce, and paragraph 1 asks for the court, the case number and the date. If you have lost your copy, the court that made it will give you another.

Read it again, properly. Check the exact monthly amount, the day it is due, which children it covers, whether it escalates each year, and whether it deals with medical aid or school fees separately. People demand the wrong figure surprisingly often because they work from memory.

Print the bank statements. Every month from the first that went wrong, with each payment highlighted and dated. Screenshots of a banking app will not do the job later.

Work out the arrears month by month, not as a lump sum. Amount due, amount received, shortfall. A single total with no working behind it is the first thing the payer will dispute. The maintenance arrears calculator keeps the months straight.

Decide what you would actually accept. If they offered half now and half over three months, would you take it? Know the answer before you write paragraph 7.

Walking through the letter, step by step

The heading line names the child, the case number and the date of the order, so that the reader, and later the maintenance officer, knows exactly which order is in issue. Do not leave the case number out.

Paragraph 1 identifies the order: the date, the court, the case number and the children. It is short because it is not in dispute, and putting undisputed facts up front makes the disputed ones easier to read.

Paragraph 2 states the obligation. "You are required to pay R[AMOUNT] per month, on or before the [DAY] day of each month." Take those words from the order itself rather than paraphrasing.

Paragraph 3 and the table are the whole letter. Each row gives the month, the amount due, the amount actually received, the date it was received, and the shortfall, with the total at the bottom. Add rows as you need them. Fill in a row even for a month that was paid in full, because a table showing the good months as well as the bad ones reads as a record rather than an accusation, and it is much harder to argue with.

Paragraph 4 ties the figure to the evidence: "This figure is taken from my bank statements, and I attach copies." Attach them. A demand with no attachments invites the reply that the payer's records show something different.

Paragraph 5 demands the total by a stated calendar date and gives full banking details. Give a real date rather than "within 14 days", which starts an argument about when counting began, and give the account number, branch code and a reference such as the case number, so no practical excuse is left.

Paragraph 6 is easy to miss and important. The ordinary monthly amount "remains payable on the [DAY] day of each month in addition to the arrears". Without it, a payer can clear the arrears, stop the monthly payment, and claim to have complied.

Paragraph 7 invites a written payment proposal before the deadline. Keep it. It costs nothing, it makes you look reasonable in front of a magistrate, and a written proposal is itself an acknowledgement of the debt.

Paragraph 8 tells the payer what to do if circumstances have genuinely changed: apply to vary the order. It also states the point most defaulters do not know. "The order stands until a court changes it, and arrears continue to accumulate in the meantime." Losing a job does not reduce an order. Only a court does.

Paragraph 9 sets out consequences, and names only real ones: an emoluments attachment order against the payer's salary, attachment of a debt owed to them by someone else, a warrant of execution for the sheriff, and the fact that failing to pay maintenance under a court order is a criminal offence. Do not add to this list. Naming the court's actual powers is enough. Threatening arrest by Friday, or saying you will keep the child away, is not, and it will be used against you.

Paragraphs 10 and 11 reserve your rights and ask for acknowledgement of receipt.

A worked example

This example is illustrative only.

Lerato Khumalo has an order from the Maintenance Court in Germiston requiring the children's father to pay R3 000 a month for two children, by the seventh. From January to March he paid in full. In April he paid R1 500 late, in May and June nothing, and in July R1 000.

Her table has seven rows, including the three months he paid properly. April shows R3 000 due, R1 500 received on 22 April, R1 500 short. May and June each show R3 000 short. July shows R1 000 received on the eleventh, R2 000 short. The total is R9 500.

Paragraph 5 demands R9 500 by 30 August into her account with the case number as the reference. Paragraph 6 records that August's R3 000 is due on the seventh regardless. She emails the letter with the highlighted statements attached, sends the same by WhatsApp, screenshots the delivery record, and diarises 31 August.

The mistakes that make one of these useless

No copy of the order attached, or no case number. The maintenance officer cannot act on an order they cannot identify, and the payer can pretend to be confused. The cost is a wasted round trip.

A lump sum with no working. "You owe me about twenty thousand" is an invitation to negotiate downwards. A month by month table is not.

Delivering it in a way you cannot prove. Slipping it under a door proves nothing. Use email, WhatsApp with the delivery record kept, or registered post, and keep the proof with the letter.

Threatening something you will not do, or cannot do. Overstating the consequences damages your credibility exactly when you need it, and it can turn a straightforward default complaint into an argument about your conduct.

Withholding contact with the child to force payment. It will not get you paid, the two are separate legal duties, and it counts against you later. Settle contact in a parenting plan instead.

Waiting past your own deadline. Accept a promise on the fifth, and another on the twelfth, and you have taught the payer that your deadlines are decorative. Go to court on the date you set.

Delivering it properly

Send it by a method that creates a record: email to the address they actually use, WhatsApp with the delivery record preserved, or registered post to their last known address. Two ways is better than one. Keep the sent item, delivery slip or screenshot with your copy of the letter.

Then build the folder. The order, the bank statements with payments highlighted, the arrears schedule, the letter and proof of delivery. That folder is what a maintenance officer needs, and it is the difference between a hearing that deals with your matter and one postponed for documents.

Diarise the payment date. If nothing has been paid by then and no written arrangement is agreed, go to the Maintenance Court where the order was made or where you live, and lodge a complaint of default. Do not wait for one more promised payment.

If it does not work, or what happens next

Lodging the complaint of default is free and you do not need an attorney. The payer is summoned to explain themselves and to bring proof of income and expenses. If nobody knows where they are or what they earn, ask about a maintenance investigator.

Then ask for the enforcement order that fits. Where the payer is in formal employment, an emoluments attachment order requiring the employer to deduct the money is usually the most reliable outcome. Where a third party owes the payer money, the court can order that debt to be paid over instead. Otherwise a warrant of execution lets the sheriff attach and sell movable property. A defaulter's details can also go to the credit bureaus, and prosecution remains available because non payment under an order is a criminal offence.

Read what to do if maintenance is not being paid before your court visit, and how to change a maintenance order if either side's circumstances have really changed. Legal Aid South Africa on 0800 110 110 applies a means test, and university law clinics assist for free. If the non payment is part of a wider pattern of control, a protection order is free at any Magistrates' Court.

LawMatch is not a law firm and this is not legal advice.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to send this letter before going to the Maintenance Court?

No. You can lodge a complaint of default without any letter at all. The letter is worth sending because it sometimes produces payment without a court queue, and because writing it forces you to build the folder you will need anyway.

The payer lost their job. Do the arrears still count?

Yes. The order stands until a court changes it, and arrears accumulate in the meantime. The correct step for them is to apply to vary the order, and paragraph 8 of the letter says so.

Can old arrears simply expire?

Do not assume so. Maintenance arrears are not treated the way an ordinary debt is. Bring everything you have and let the maintenance officer look at it.

What if they offer to pay in instalments?

Consider it, but get it in writing, keep the ordinary monthly amount running alongside it, and set a date by which the arrears are cleared. Paragraph 7 invites exactly that.

They are threatening me. What now?

Deal with safety before money. Do not hand the letter over in person. A protection order is free at any Magistrates' Court, the GBV Command Centre is on 0800 428 428, and the police are on 10111.