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61 definitions29 resources
Knowledge track
Family Law Terms
Divorce, maintenance, parenting, domestic violence, and Family Advocate concepts.
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Explore Family Law Terms
01
Family Law TermsFeatured
Adoption
A Children's Court process that can create a permanent legal parent-child relationship between a child and adoptive parent or parents.
Read definition02Family Law TermsFeatured
Annulment
A legal process that asks a court to declare that a marriage is void or voidable, rather than ending it by divorce.
Read definition03Family Law TermsFeatured
Attachment of debts for maintenance
A maintenance-enforcement order that can attach money owed to the person who failed to comply with a maintenance order.
Read definition04Family Law TermsFeatured
Attachment of emoluments for maintenance
A maintenance-enforcement order requiring deductions from salary, wages, or similar earnings to pay maintenance arrears or ongoing maintenance.
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Best interests of the child
A child-focused legal standard requiring decisions about children to prioritise the child's welfare, safety, development, and circumstances.
Read definition06Family Law TermsFeatured
Breach of protection order
A possible violation of the terms of a protection order, which may trigger police, court, or criminal-law steps depending on the order and facts.
Read definition07Family Law TermsFeatured
Care of a child
A parental responsibility and right concerning a child's day-to-day care, living arrangements, supervision, safety, and wellbeing.
Read definition08Family Law TermsFeatured
Child
In South African family-law and children's-rights context, a child is generally a person under 18 years of age.
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Child abduction
The wrongful removal or retention of a child, often across borders, in a way that may trigger urgent family-law, Children's Court, or Hague Convention steps.
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Child and youth care centre
A registered residential care facility for children who need placement, care, protection, treatment, or developmental support under child-protection law.
Read definition11Family Law TermsFeatured
Child exposed to domestic violence
A child who has seen, heard, experienced, or been affected by domestic violence in a home or family setting.
Read definition12Family Law TermsFeatured
Child in need of care and protection
A Children's Act concept used where a child may need court, social-work, or state protection because of risk, neglect, abuse, abandonment, exploitation, or lack of proper care.
Read definition13Family Law TermsFeatured
Child Maintenance
Financial support that parents or responsible persons may need to provide for a child's needs.
Read definition14Family Law TermsFeatured
Children's Court
A specialist court that deals with child-protection, care, guardianship, foster-care, and other Children's Act matters.
Read definition15Family Law TermsFeatured
Coercive behaviour
Controlling, threatening, pressuring, or intimidating conduct that restricts another person's choices or safety in a domestic or family context.
Read definition16Family Law TermsFeatured
Complainant in domestic violence
The person who applies for protection or reports domestic violence under the domestic-violence protection framework.
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Contact with a child
A parental responsibility and right involving communication, visits, or personal interaction with a child.
Read definition18Family Law TermsFeatured
Contested Divorce
A divorce where the spouses do not agree on one or more material issues.
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Controlling behaviour
A pattern of conduct in a domestic relationship that restricts a person's movement, choices, contact with others, money, communication, or daily life.
Read definition20Family Law TermsFeatured
Decree Of Divorce
The court order that formally confirms a divorce has been granted.
Read definition21Family Law TermsFeatured
Discharge of maintenance order
A Maintenance Court process that ends an existing maintenance order where the legal and factual basis for ending it is proved.
Read definition22Family Law TermsFeatured
Divorce
The legal process that ends a civil marriage or qualifying marriage through a court order.
Read definition23Family Law TermsFeatured
Divorce Lawyer
Divorce Lawyer describes legal help linked to family law, including matters such as divorce, settlement, and parenting and maintenance.
Read definition24Family Law TermsFeatured
Divorce Settlement Agreement
The written agreement that records the terms spouses want the court to make part of a divorce order.
Read definition25Family Law TermsFeatured
Domestic relationship
A relationship category that can bring a matter within domestic-violence protection-order law.
Read definition26Family Law TermsFeatured
Domestic violence
Abusive, threatening, controlling, or harmful conduct within a domestic relationship that may justify protection-order, police, safety, or court steps.
Read definition27Family Law TermsFeatured
Domestic violence safety monitoring notice
A domestic-violence process notice connected to monitoring safety risk, compliance, or protection steps after domestic-violence information reaches the justice system.
Read definition28Family Law TermsFeatured
Duty of support
A legal duty to provide support where the law recognises a family or dependency relationship, often involving parents, children, spouses, or estates.
Read definition29Family Law TermsFeatured
Economic abuse
Domestic-violence conduct involving control, deprivation, or interference with money, property, income, housing, necessities, or financial independence.
Read definition30Family Law TermsFeatured
Electronic communications direction
A court-related direction that may be used to deal with abusive, threatening, or harassing electronic communication in a domestic-violence or protection-order process.
Read definition31Family Law TermsFeatured
Emotional abuse
Abusive conduct that harms, intimidates, humiliates, controls, threatens, or undermines a person's emotional or psychological wellbeing in a domestic relationship.
Read definition32Family Law TermsFeatured
Family Advocate
An official office that assists courts with family matters involving children, care, contact, guardianship, and best interests.
Read definition33Family Law TermsFeatured
Family Counsellor
A professional in the Office of the Family Advocate who assists with enquiries and recommendations in child-related family-law disputes.
Read definition34Family Law TermsFeatured
Family Lawyer
Family Lawyer describes legal help linked to family law, including matters such as maintenance, parenting arrangements, and family disputes.
Read definition35Family Law TermsFeatured
Final protection order
A court-confirmed protection order that remains in force after the court has considered whether protection terms should be made final.
Read definition36Family Law TermsFeatured
Foster care
A Children's Court-supervised placement where a child is placed in the care of a foster parent or suitable caregiver under the child-protection framework.
Read definition37Family Law TermsFeatured
Guardianship
A parental responsibility and right involving major decisions and legal authority for a child.
Read definition38Family Law TermsFeatured
Harassment in domestic violence
Repeated or unwanted conduct in a domestic relationship that intimidates, threatens, follows, contacts, monitors, or causes fear or harm.
Read definition39Family Law TermsFeatured
Interim protection order
A temporary protection order granted before the court decides whether to make protection terms final.
Read definition40Family Law TermsFeatured
Irretrievable breakdown
A divorce-law ground describing a marriage relationship that has broken down so seriously that it cannot reasonably be restored.
Read definition41Family Law TermsFeatured
Laying-in expenses
Birth-related and pregnancy-related expenses that may be considered in a maintenance matter, especially where support connected to a child's birth is disputed.
Read definition42Family Law TermsFeatured
Legal separation
A practical separation between spouses who remain legally married; in South Africa, divorce is the court process that legally ends the marriage.
Read definition43Family Law TermsFeatured
Maintenance Arrears
Maintenance amounts that are due under an agreement or order but have not been paid.
Read definition44Family Law TermsFeatured
Maintenance complaint
A Maintenance Court process used to ask for maintenance, enforce maintenance, or change an existing maintenance arrangement.
Read definition45Family Law TermsFeatured
Maintenance Court
The court process used for maintenance applications, enquiries, variation, and enforcement.
Read definition46Family Law TermsFeatured
Maintenance enquiry
A Maintenance Court enquiry into whether maintenance should be ordered, changed, enforced, suspended, or discharged based on the parties' circumstances.
Read definition47Family Law TermsFeatured
Maintenance investigator
A maintenance-process official who gathers information about income, employment, residence, assets, payment history, or financial circumstances for a Maintenance Court matter.
Read definition48Family Law TermsFeatured
Maintenance officer
A Maintenance Court official who receives, screens, investigates, and helps process maintenance complaints, enquiries, variation requests, and enforcement steps.
Read definition49Family Law TermsFeatured
Maintenance Order
A court order that requires a person to pay maintenance for a child, spouse, or another qualifying dependant.
Read definition50Family Law TermsFeatured
Maintenance warrant of execution
A Maintenance Court enforcement document that authorises attachment or execution steps to recover unpaid maintenance where the legal requirements are met.
Read definition51Family Law TermsFeatured
Parental responsibilities and rights
The Children's Act framework for a parent's responsibilities and rights toward a child, including care, contact, guardianship, and support duties.
Read definition52Family Law TermsFeatured
Parenting Plan
A written plan that records care, contact, and parental-responsibility arrangements for a child.
Read definition53Family Law TermsFeatured
Physical abuse
Domestic-violence conduct involving physical harm, assault, threats of physical harm, or conduct that puts a person's bodily safety at risk.
Read definition54Family Law TermsFeatured
Protection order
A court order that restricts abusive, threatening, harassing, or harmful conduct and can set conditions to protect a complainant or affected person.
Read definition55Family Law TermsFeatured
Relocation with a child
A child-related family-law issue where moving a child may affect care, contact, guardianship, schooling, stability, or another parent's parental responsibilities and rights.
Read definition56Family Law TermsFeatured
Respondent in domestic violence
The person against whom a domestic-violence protection order or related domestic-violence relief is sought.
Read definition57Family Law TermsFeatured
Sexual abuse in domestic violence
Sexual abuse, coercion, assault, threats, or unwanted sexual conduct within a domestic relationship.
Read definition58Family Law TermsFeatured
Spousal maintenance
Financial support that one spouse or former spouse may claim from the other during or after a marriage breakdown, depending on the facts and court order.
Read definition59Family Law TermsFeatured
Uncontested Divorce
A divorce where the spouses agree on the main terms needed to finalise the matter.
Read definition60Family Law TermsFeatured
Variation of maintenance order
A court process to change an existing maintenance order because circumstances have changed or the existing order needs adjustment.
Read definition61Family Law TermsFeatured
Warrant of arrest for protection order
A warrant linked to a protection order that may allow arrest if the order is breached and the legal requirements for enforcement are met.
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Resources connected to this track
Move from a definition into practical guidance and preparation.
Checklist
Divorce Checklist
Preparation checklist for divorce process, settlement, parenting, and maintenance issues.
Family LawClient Document PackMaintenance Documents Checklist
Document pack for income, expenses, child costs, payment records, and maintenance court preparation.
Family LawPreparation PackParenting Plan Preparation Pack
Preparation pack for care, contact, schooling, holidays, communication, and parenting-plan discussion points.
Family LawLawyer Discovery ResourceFamily Lawyer Guide Resource
Prepare to compare or brief a family lawyer by organising the family issue, urgent risks, court orders, parenting facts, financial records, and consultation questions.
Family LawLawyer Discovery ResourceFamily Lawyer Pretoria Discovery Resource
Compare Pretoria family-law help by issue type, court or maintenance route, documents, urgency, location, consultation questions, and fee clarity.
Family LawPreparation PackDivorce Lawyer Near Me Preparation Checklist
Prepare a divorce-law consultation by organising marriage documents, children, property, pension, debts, maintenance, settlement questions, and local lawyer comparison notes.
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Practice area
Divorce Law
Divorce process, settlement agreements, parenting arrangements, maintenance, and family-law court pathways.