FAMILY LAW ACT 1975 - SECT 66X Recovery of amounts paid, and property transferred or settled, under maintenance orders
FAMILY LAW ACT 1975 - SECT 66X
Recovery of amounts paid, and property transferred or settled, under maintenance orders(a) a court has at any time purported to make an order (the purported order ) of a kind referred to in paragraph 66P(1)(a), (b) or (c) requiring a person (the maintenance provider ) to pay an amount, or to transfer or settle property, by way of maintenance for a child; and
(b) the maintenance provider has:
(i) paid another person an amount or amounts; or
(ii) transferred or settled property;
in compliance, or partial compliance, with the purported order; and
(c) a court has determined that the maintenance provider is not a parent or step - parent of the child.
(2) If the maintenance provider applies to a court having jurisdiction under this Part for an order under this subsection, the court must make such order as it considers just and equitable in the circumstances, for:
(a) if the purported order was of a kind referred to in paragraph 66P(1)(a) or (b)--the repayment to the maintenance provider, by the person to whom the amount or amounts referred to in subparagraph (1)(b)(i) of this section were paid, of an amount up to, or equal to, that amount or the sum of those amounts; or
(b) if the purported order was of the kind referred to in paragraph 66P(1)(c)--the return to the maintenance provider of:
(i) the property referred to in subparagraph (1)(b)(ii) of this section; or
(ii) an amount up to, or equal to, the value of that property.
The court may only order the repayment of an amount that is less than the amount, or the sum of the amounts, referred to in subparagraph (1)(b)(i) of this section, or the return of an amount that is less than the value of the property referred to in subparagraph (1)(b)(ii) of this section, in exceptional circumstances.
(3) If the purported order was of the kind referred to in paragraph 66P(1)(c) and the court that made the order did so:
(a) in part by way of providing maintenance for the child; and
(b) in part for some other purpose;
the reference in paragraph (2)(b) to the property, or the value of the property, referred to in subparagraph (1)(b)(ii) is taken to be a reference to that property, or the value of that property, only to the extent to which that property was transferred or settled by way of providing maintenance for the child.
(4) Without limiting paragraph (2)(b), the orders that the court may make under that paragraph include the following:
(a) an order that a specified payment be made;
(b) an order that a specified transfer or settlement of property be made;
(c) an order that any necessary instrument be executed, and that such documents of title be produced and such other things be done, as are necessary to enable an order to be carried out effectively or to provide security for the due performance of an order.
(5) An amount paid to the Commonwealth under section 30
of the Child Support (Registration and Collection) Act 1988 is to be taken,
for the purposes of this section, to have been paid to the person to whom,
apart from that section, the amount would have been payable.