For most separated and divorcing parents, at some point there must be a determination as to the amount of child support one parent must pay the other. In addition to a basic child support amount, there is also an amount set for what are known as “special and extraordinary expenses” – sometimes called “section 7 expenses” because they are expressly acknowledged under section 7 of the federal Divorce Act.
When parents split, courts are often asked to untangle a long list of proposed special expenses, to determine whether they should be shared costs between the parents. Common items include the fees for a child’s extracurricular activities, like after-school music lessons, or participation in sports.
One narrow question under this heading, is whether the costs for a live-in nanny should be covered under these shared special expenses.
This was the main issue in a brief ruling in Hohmeier v. Caputo. The separated parents had a child together, who was living with the mother full time since the father was serving a life sentence in prison. The mother – who was also attending school – was paying a live-in Nanny $2,560 gross per month, but charged her $1,000 in rent. This left a net monthly expense of $1,560 for the Nanny’s services. She worked full-time caring for the child, and lived in a room in the apartment where the mother and child also resided.
The father objected to the mother characterizing the $1,560 as a special expense, but the court dismissed his complaint. It wrote:
The issue is whether the $1,560 expense qualifies, in the circumstances, as a legitimate section 7 expense. I find that it does. I find that it is necessary, reasonable and that [the father], based on his income of $100,000 annually has the means to pay the expenses. The evidence is that the nanny lives in a room in the unit where the applicant and child reside. She is not living there for free. The applicant is 2.5 years into a 4 year course of study. Even if the [mother] was employed, the parties would need to pay for a child care expense. The [mother] has not worked since December 2018. There is little evidence that the [father] objected to the nanny until now. Accordingly, the parties shall pay their proportional share for the $1,560 nanny section 7 expense.
Incidentally, these two parents have an interesting jailhouse-romance backstory, since the father was convicted of a planning a murder and was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.
For the full text of the decision on the section 7 aspect, see:
Hohmeier v. Caputo, 2022 ONSC 5930 (CanLII)
The related decision can be found at:
Hohmeier v. Caputo, 2022 ONSC 4925 (CanLII)
