When Does a Parent's Financial Responsibility for a Child End?

The two legal regimes

Financial support for children in Australia is dealt with under two separate systems that operate together:

• Administrative child support under the Child Support (Assessment) Act 1989 (Cth), assessed and collected by Services Australia. This is the ordinary route for children of separated parents, and for a detailed treatment see our article on child support assessments and private agreements in Australia.
• Child maintenance under Part VII of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth), determined by a court exercising family-law jurisdiction, most commonly the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia and, in Western Australia, the Family Court of Western Australia. In practice this matters most for children the administrative scheme does not cover, and for maintenance of a person aged 18 or over.

Section 66C of the Family Law Act recognises the primary duty of parents to maintain their children. The two regimes are not alternatives a parent can choose between: section 66E, discussed below, generally directs matters into the administrative scheme where that scheme is available.

When administrative child support ends

An administrative child support assessment ends on the occurrence of a terminating event as defined in the Child Support (Assessment) Act 1989 (Cth). The best known of these is the child turning 18, subject to the secondary-school extension described in the next section. Terminating events are not limited to that. Other terminating events can involve death, adoption, the child becoming a member of a couple, changes in eligible care and particular residence or international circumstances. The application of those events is fact-specific, and the statutory provisions should be checked rather than assumed.

Two practical points follow. First, the end of an assessment is a matter of law, not of agreement between the parents — Services Australia applies the Act to the facts it has. Second, an assessment is only one of the possible sources of a payment obligation. A binding or limited child support agreement, or a court order, may have its own cessation rules that do not line up with the assessment. Before payments are stopped or reduced, the operative instrument should be read and, if there is any doubt, advice obtained. Stopping payment on an assumption is the most common way a parent accrues a debt.

Extending support for secondary school

Many children turn 18 partway through Year 12. Sections 151B to 151D of the Child Support (Assessment) Act allow an assessment to be extended so that it continues to the last day of the secondary school year in which the child turns 18. In practical terms:

• the application ordinarily needs to be made while the child is 17 and before the child's 18th birthday;
• the child must be in full-time secondary education and must continue that study after turning 18;
• a late application can be accepted only in the exceptional circumstances the legislation allows, being circumstances beyond the applicant's control that prevented a timely application;
• an accepted extension continues the assessment only to the end of that secondary school year — it is not an open-ended continuation;
• the parent or carer entitled to receive child support can apply for the extension;
• where a child support agreement is in place, its terms require separate analysis, and changing it may require the parties to act jointly;
• an agreement that expressly ends on or before the child's 18th birthday cannot simply be extended by this process.

The extension is administered by Services Australia. It is an administrative continuation of the child support assessment and is a different thing from adult child maintenance under the Family Law Act. Current guidance is published by Services Australia — Child support when your child turns 18.

Child support agreements and existing orders

Where parents have entered a binding or limited child support agreement, the agreement governs what is payable and when the obligation ends, within the framework the Act allows. Terminating an agreement, or replacing it, is a formal process: binding agreements generally require a new binding agreement, a termination agreement with independent legal advice on each side, or a court order setting the agreement aside in the limited circumstances provided for. Limited child support agreements have separate statutory termination rules, including rules involving notional assessments. Whether a party can terminate depends on the agreement, the assessment history and the statutory conditions.

Existing court orders require the same care. A child maintenance order made under Part VII has its own terms and its own cessation rules, examined below. A court order expressed to continue after 18 may remain operative, subject to the statutory cessation rules. A child support agreement requires separate treatment: an agreement with an end date after 18 does not necessarily continue automatically. The applicable extension requirements ordinarily must be satisfied before the child turns 18, although a late application may be accepted in the limited exceptional circumstances allowed by the legislation. The correct starting point in every case is the document itself.

Adult child maintenance after 18

Before turning to section 66L it is important to understand section 66E. In plain English, a court generally must not make, revive or vary a child maintenance order under Part VII if an application could properly be made for an administrative assessment under the Child Support (Assessment) Act — whether or not such an application has actually been made. The administrative scheme has priority where it is available, which is why Part VII maintenance applications are usually confined to situations the scheme does not reach, including maintenance of a person aged 18 or over.

Section 66L is the provision that permits maintenance for an adult child. A court may make or continue an order for the maintenance of a person aged 18 or over only if satisfied that the provision of maintenance is necessary:

• to enable the child to complete their education; or
• because of a mental or physical disability of the child.

The threshold is necessity, judged on the evidence against one of those two grounds. Neither tertiary enrolment nor the existence of a disability automatically establishes an entitlement, an amount, or a duration. Financial hardship, unemployment, or ordinary continuing dependence on a parent will not by themselves satisfy the section. Equally, it would be wrong to say maintenance is unavailable simply because a young person is unwell: an illness may constitute, or result in, a physical or mental disability. Illness alone is not enough, but illness that satisfies the statutory disability ground and the necessity test can support an order.

Who can apply

Section 66F identifies who may apply for a child maintenance order. An application may be made by:

• either or both of the child's parents;
• the child;
• a grandparent of the child; or
• any other person concerned with the care, welfare or development of the child.

A separate subsection applies where the child is under the care of a person under a child welfare law, which can restrict who may bring the application. Where the person is an adult, it is common for the application to be made by the adult child rather than by a parent, though the section does not require that.

What the court considers

Sections 66H, 66J and 66K set out how the amount of maintenance is worked out. Expressed in everyday terms, the court looks at:

• The child's proper needs. What the child actually requires, having regard to the manner in which the child is being, and is expected to be, educated or trained, and to any special needs.
• The child's own capacity. The income, earning capacity, property and financial resources of the child, which section 66J permits the court to take into account, including part-time work and scholarships. Section 66J(3) requires the court to disregard an entitlement of the child, or of the person with whom the child lives, to an income-tested pension, allowance or benefit.
• The parent's capacity. The income, earning capacity, property and financial resources of the person from whom maintenance is sought, together with their necessary commitments — including their duty to support themselves and any other people they are legally required to maintain.
• The respective contributions. The extent of the financial contribution it is appropriate for each parent, and any other relevant person, to make.

These provisions are directed at proper needs measured against genuine capacity. They do not make every expense a young adult incurs recoverable from a parent. The court distinguishes the child's proper needs from discretionary expenditure and assesses the claimed expenses in light of the statutory factors and the evidence.

University and other education

There is no automatic obligation on a parent to fund tertiary study. A young adult's decision to enrol at university does not create a liability; the question is whether maintenance is necessary to enable the child to complete their education, and then what amount is appropriate on the statutory factors.

Evidence therefore matters a great deal. Evidence may include the relationship between the proposed course and the child's previous education, the child's commitment to the course, documented expenses, their capacity to work while studying and the resources available to the parties. Outcomes vary with the evidence, and no particular result can be guaranteed.

Adult children with disability

Where an adult child has a mental or physical disability, section 66L may permit an order for maintenance if the court is satisfied maintenance is necessary because of that disability. As with education, the ground opens the door but does not determine the outcome: the amount and duration depend on the court's assessment of necessity, the child's needs and resources, the parents' circumstances, and the other statutory factors.

Government support interacts with, rather than replaces, this analysis. The receipt of a means-tested payment such as the Disability Support Pension does not automatically displace a parental maintenance duty, and maintenance received can itself be relevant to means testing. NDIS funding is directed at reasonable and necessary disability supports and generally does not meet ordinary day-to-day living costs such as rent, food and utilities. Because the interaction between maintenance, social security payments and disability funding is fact-specific, tailored legal advice alongside financial or benefits advice is sensible before an application is made or settled.

Step-parent maintenance

A step-parent does not acquire a maintenance duty merely by living in the same household as a child. The provisions work in sequence:

• Section 66D provides that a step-parent has a duty to maintain a step-child only if a court makes an order under section 66M, and that any such duty is secondary to the primary duty of the child's parents.
• Section 66M governs whether it is proper to make such an order, having regard to matters including the length and circumstances of the marriage or relationship to the parent, the relationship between the step-parent and the child, the arrangements that have existed for the child's maintenance, and any special circumstances.
• Section 66N deals with determining the extent of the step-parent's financial contribution, taking into account the primary duty of the parents.

When maintenance orders end

Part VII contains specific rules about when a child maintenance order stops. In summary, and subject to the terms of the particular order:

• Age. Section 66L(3), read with section 66T, means an ordinary child maintenance order stops when the child turns 18 unless the order is expressed to continue beyond that age on one of the section 66L grounds.
• Death. Section 66U deals with the effect of relevant deaths, including that an order generally stops on the death of the person liable to pay. A Family Law Act maintenance order does not ordinarily continue as an ongoing payment obligation binding the estate.
• Adoption, marriage or de facto relationship. Section 66V provides for cessation where the child is adopted, marries or enters a de facto relationship.
• Change in the qualifying circumstance. Section 66VA provides that an order made for a person aged 18 or over on the education or disability ground stops if the relevant education ceases or the relevant disability ceases.
• Arrears survive. Section 66W confirms that cessation does not affect a liability that arose before the order stopped.

These are general propositions. Whether a particular order has ended, and on what date, depends on its terms and the facts, and is a matter on which advice should be obtained rather than assumed.

Arrears do not automatically disappear

This point deserves emphasis because it is so often misunderstood. The end of a future liability does not erase what has already accrued. A child support debt registered with Services Australia remains a debt after the assessment ends, and the usual collection and enforcement mechanisms — including deduction from wages or bank accounts, tax refund interception, departure prohibition orders and court enforcement — remain available. Section 66W has the equivalent effect for child maintenance orders.

The practical warning is straightforward: a parent should not assume that a child turning 18 permits payments to stop unilaterally, nor that reaching that milestone wipes out an existing balance. A parent who believes an assessment should have ended, or that the amount is wrong, should raise it with Services Australia or obtain advice rather than simply stopping payment.

Death and estate planning

Death raises several distinct questions that are often run together. Keeping them separate makes the position much clearer:

• Lifetime liability. Child support and child maintenance obligations operate during the paying parent's lifetime.
• Accrued unpaid amounts. Liabilities that had already fallen due before death are not extinguished by death and may be pursued as a debt.
• Cessation on death. Section 66U generally ends a child maintenance order on the death of the liable person. Estate planning does not, and cannot, keep a Family Law Act maintenance order running after death.
• Superannuation and insurance. Superannuation death benefits and life insurance may provide an important source of provision for a dependent child. They pass according to the fund's governing rules and any valid nomination, or the policy terms, rather than automatically under the Will. See our article on superannuation and your Will.
• Testamentary provision. Provision for a child after death is made through the Will and the broader estate plan, and is governed by state and territory succession law rather than by the Family Law Act.

As a Victorian firm we are often asked about the position here. In Victoria, an eligible person may apply to the court for family provision from a deceased estate under the Administration and Probate Act 1958 (Vic). That is a separate Victorian succession-law issue with its own eligibility categories, time limits and considerations, and the rules differ between states and territories. It should not be assumed that the same position applies elsewhere in Australia.

Where a child has ongoing needs, structures such as testamentary or protective trusts, insurance and superannuation nominations are commonly considered. A special disability trust is a particular, regulated Commonwealth arrangement with strict eligibility criteria as to the beneficiary's disability, restrictions on how trust funds may be spent, and specific social-security means-testing concessions. It is not a generic label for any trust benefiting a person with disability, and an ordinary testamentary or protective trust does the job differently and without those concessions. Which structure is appropriate depends on the beneficiary's circumstances, so specific legal and financial advice is important.

Practical steps before payments stop

1. Identify what actually creates the obligation — an administrative assessment, a child support agreement, a court order, or a combination — and read it.
2. Diarise the child's 17th birthday if secondary school will continue past 18, and lodge any extension application with Services Australia in good time.
3. Check whether an agreement expressly ends at or before 18, and take advice early if it needs to change.
4. Confirm the balance owing before assuming the matter is finished; arrears outlive the assessment.
5. Where an adult child may need continuing support on education or disability grounds, gather the evidence — enrolment details, costs, medical or allied health material and financial records — before making or responding to an application.
6. Review the Will, superannuation nominations and insurance at the same time, particularly where a child has long-term needs.

Parke Lawyers advises on child support, adult child maintenance under section 66L, and estate planning where ongoing support for a child may be relevant.

Sources and further reading

• Child Support (Assessment) Act 1989 (Cth) — current version
• Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) — current version, including Part VII
• Services Australia — Child support when your child turns 18
• Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia — child support and maintenance
• Department of Social Services — Child Support Guide

Frequently asked questions