Child Maintenance Budget Organiser

This is an organiser, not a calculator. It will not tell you what maintenance you should receive or pay, and no responsible tool could. What it will do is turn a scattered set of costs into an ordered monthly summary that a lawyer, and in due course a court, can actually work with.

Why a budget is not an answer

Maintenance under UAE law is not decided by adding up a household spreadsheet. The framework that applies, the payer’s resources, the child’s needs, the family’s established circumstances and the evidence all bear on it, and the weight given to each is a matter for the court on the facts.

A budget still matters, for a different reason: it is how needs are evidenced. A claim expressed as a round figure invites the response that it is invented. A claim broken into categories, each supported by receipts, invoices or statements, is a great deal harder to dismiss.

Making the figures credible

• Use actual figures, not aspirations. A budget that describes a lifestyle nobody has been living will be tested and will not survive.
• Keep the proof with the figure. School invoices, tenancy contract, insurance schedule, medical bills, bank records.
• Separate the child’s share. Where a cost is shared — housing, utilities — use a reasoned proportion and be ready to explain how you arrived at it.
• Show one-off and recurring costs separately. An annual school payment is not a monthly cost, and presenting it as one damages your credibility on everything else.
• Record what has actually been paid. A dated record of payments made or missed is often the most important document in a maintenance dispute.

How maintenance is assessed is explained on Child Maintenance and, for spousal claims, on Alimony and Maintenance.

Common challenges to a budget, and how a good one answers them

• “The figures are inflated.” Answered by receipts, not by insistence.
• “These costs are not the child’s.” Answered by separating the child’s share and explaining the basis for it.
• “This is a new standard of living.” Answered by showing the same pattern of spending before the separation.
• “The payer cannot afford it.” Not answered by your budget at all — that goes to the payer’s resources and evidence about them.

What this tool cannot do

• It does not calculate, estimate or predict maintenance. It adds up what you enter.
• It does not know the applicable framework, the payer’s means or the family’s history.
• It cannot tell you whether a category will be accepted, or in what proportion.
• The per-child figure is arithmetic, not a legal apportionment — children’s needs are rarely identical.
• It is not advice, and the summary is not evidence until the records behind it are produced.

What happens to the figures you enter

The worksheet above runs in this browser tab. The figures you type are totalled by a script on this page and are never sent to this website, never written to your device and never seen by anyone else. Household figures are sensitive in a way people underestimate, particularly while both parties still share a home or a device.

Nothing is saved, so closing the tab loses the working. Use the print button to keep the summary, and keep the statements and invoices that support each figure with it — a figure nobody can see behind is a figure that will be argued about.

Turning the result into a next step

The output of any of these tools is preparation, not advice. It is most useful when it becomes the first page of a consultation: bring it, and the conversation can start from organised facts rather than from a blank page.

To take it further, use the enquiry form on this page with a short description of the matter, or contact the office directly on +971 50 627 5196. If your matter is urgent — a proposed child travel, an imminent hearing, or immediate safety — say so, and call as well as writing.

The Maintenance Guide puts the same figures in procedural order. To test a schedule against the evidence you actually hold, book a consultation.

A worked example: turning receipts into a schedule

Illustrative only, and the figures are invented.

A parent begins with “the children cost about 12,000 a month”. That is a number that invites an argument and cannot easily be defended.

Worked through the categories, it becomes: school fees of 6,000 (an annual invoice of 72,000 divided by twelve, and said to be so), a housing share of 2,500 (a stated proportion of the rent, with the reasoning given), medical and insurance of 900 (policy schedule and the year’s bills), food and household of 1,400, activities of 700, and transport of 500. The total happens to be close to the original figure — but it is now six defensible components, each with a document behind it, rather than one assertion.

The difference shows in how a challenge plays out. “Twelve thousand is too much” is hard to answer. “The housing share is too high” is a narrow point about one line, and if it is conceded, the other five lines are unaffected. A budget built in components is not just more credible; it is more resilient.

Recording what has actually been paid

The second schedule worth keeping is a payment record: what was due, what was paid, on what date, by what method, and what remains. In a maintenance dispute this is frequently more important than the budget itself, because arrears are proved by the record rather than by recollection.

Keep it dated and contemporaneous, and keep the bank confirmations with it. Where a payment was partial, record the amount rather than marking the month unpaid. Where a payment was made in cash or through a third party, note how it can be evidenced. A payment record that is scrupulously fair about what was paid is far more persuasive on what was not.

Frequently asked questions