The High Court in Cape Town is going to deliver a verdict this week on the question of whether a person is responsible for maintenance to an ex-partner who was in a cohabiting relationship that broke up.
“If this application for maintenance is granted, I think there will have to be a formal registration or something similar, just to prevent people from staying together for two months and then demanding maintenance. Apart from that, I think it is good to regulate cohabitation relationships especially if there are children involved, it will surely be beneficial for the children.” – Pieter Steenkamp (SVN Attorney’s inc.)
According to Family Laws South Africa, in this application the applicant will ask the Court to develop the common law in order to allow partners in life partnerships, in which the partners had undertaken reciprocal duties of support, to claim maintenance pendente lite from one another following the termination of the life partnership, insofar as the said life partner is not able to maintain themselves from their own means and earnings.
The application is aimed at the development of the common law of the duty of support in life partnerships and is geared to providing a remedy for maintenance upon the termination of a permanent life partnerships in circumstances where the parties, as a matter of fact, had undertaken reciprocal duties to support one another during the existence of the partnership.
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