How a new conciliation route can resolve years of unpaid divorce maintenance beyond the courtroom

When a case goes to court and an ex-spouse who is supposed to pay maintenance tries to hide his or her true financial position, lawyers have to file an application to unearth assets in a process called discovery.

“Multiple rounds of discovery would mean a lot of costs for our clients,” said Ms Liyana. She has had clients decide not to seek enforcement in court because they expect their ex-spouses to be uncooperative and the costs to add up.

Under the maintenance enforcement process, applicants are not charged any fees for conciliation or fact-finding services.

If a settlement is not reached in conciliation, the information found through fact-finding will be submitted to the Family Justice Courts for the full hearing.

This will help the court to make more targeted and effective enforcement orders to recover the arrears, said MinLaw. It has already happened in some cases heard by the courts.

Ms Liyana is particularly hopeful for middle-income claimants sandwiched between the lower income ceiling for legal aid, and the higher income levels needed to afford their own legal representation.

“If it’s going to be that simple, that they can just file the application and then immediately they get help from the maintenance enforcement officer, I can literally just do an advisory role,” she said.

This means she can charge as little as S$500 if a client still wants a legal consultation on what to expect and what they are entitled to, and for her to look through their application documents to make sure all is sound.

While the amounts of maintenance recouped through this process may not all be immense, they still make a difference to the families involved.

“It affects the lives of ex-spouses and children, brings about certainty for people to carry on with school, classes, the ability to see the doctor if they’re ill,” said Mr Leong.

“The break-up of a family is itself a sufficiently traumatic experience for everybody concerned,” he added.

“The ability for us to perhaps ‘hand-hold’ applicants through this journey to make it easier is one big factor that we should view as a big advantage to having this programme.”