CHILD SUPPORT - non-agency payments - joint home loan payments - half credited as mutual intention non-agency payments - stopped making home loan payments - redraw payments - not a mutual intention - discrepancy in evidence - payments not made - liability to Child Support - decision under review affirmed

Names used in all published decisions are pseudonyms. Any references appearing in square brackets indicate that information has been omitted from this decision and replaced with generic information pursuant to subsection 16(2AB) of the Child Support (Registration and Collection) Act 1988.

1. Mr Cahill and Ms Cahill are the parents of three children. A child support case was registered with Services Australia - Child Support ("Child Support") from 5 April 2023. Mr Cahill was assessed to pay child support. His child support payable was a liability that he owed to Child Support (and not Ms Cahill). He could discharge that liability via direct payments to Child Support. He could also make payments to third parties and, if certain requirements were satisfied, the payments could be credited against his liability to Child Support. Such payments are called non-agency payments, of which there are two types: mutual intention non-agency payments and prescribed non‑agency payments.
2. The parents separated in March 2023. Mr Cahill moved out of the family home. Ms Cahill continued living in the family home. The parents had a joint home loan. Mr Cahill paid the home loan repayments via transfers from one of his bank accounts: page 71 of the hearing papers. From time to time, he applied to have the payments credited as mutual intention non-agency payments under section 71A of the Child Support (Registration and Collection) Act 1988 ("the Registration Act"). One of the requirements of section 71A is that "the amount paid, or a part of the amount paid, was intended by both the payer and the payee to be paid in complete or partial satisfaction" of the payer's liability to Child Support. Ms Cahill agreed to a half of each payment being credited as a non-agency payment, and that is what occurred.
3. On 9 November 2023, Mr Cahill lodged another application to have $602.50 credited as a non-agency payment. He provided a phone screenshot which indicated that on 9 November 2023 he transferred $1,205.00 from his [Bank 1] TRANSACTION ACCOUNT with an account number ending [number]. I will refer to that account as his personal account. The description of the transaction was "Home Loan". He also submitted to Child Support:

Home loan payment of which Ms Cahill is on and required to pay half. This has been approved on every occasion as Ms Cahill is legally required to pay half of the fortnightly mortgage. Mortgage repayments have increased as per attached evidence, fortnightly cost is now $1205, half of which is $602.50

1. On 23 November 2023, Mr Cahill lodged another claim in almost identical terms. Again, he provided evidence which indicated that he had transferred $1,205.00 from his personal account to the joint home loan account.
2. On 6 December 2023, Child Support contacted Ms Cahill and noted:

Also discussed NAPS from Mr Cahill and as they were for the mortgage she accepted the NAP.

1. Child Support decided to credit two payments of $602.50 as mutual intention non‑agency payments.
2. Mr Cahill kept applying to have home loan repayments credited, and Child Support kept crediting the payments, until 4 July 2024.
3. On 20 August 2024 and 11 September 2024, Ms Cahill belatedly objected to various decisions to credit a total of 18 payments of $602.50 from 9 November 2023 to 4 July 2024. She also applied for extensions of time in which to object. Child Support granted her extension of time applications. It appears that an objections officer intended to allow all of her objections but omitted to review the decisions to credit payments of $602.50 on 29 February 2024, 28 March 2024, 11 April 2024 and 26 April 2024. Child Support should attend to those outstanding matters.
4. Mr Cahill applied to the Tribunal for review of the objections officer's decisions. I heard the matter on 1 August 2025. Mr Cahill and Ms Cahill gave sworn evidence via MS Teams. Both parents confirmed that they had received the hearing papers but did not have the hearing papers with them for the hearing.
5. Mr Cahill confirmed that his last home loan payment from one of his various bank accounts occurred on 26 October 2023. From 9 November 2023, he stopped making those payments, and the home loan payments were met via the joint home loan's redraw facility. As at 20 June 2022, which was prior to the parents' separation, the joint home loan account's advance payment credit was $62,098. As at 20 June 2023, it was $40,397.
6. During the hearing, Mr Cahill confirmed that he had not informed Ms Cahill that he had stopped making home loan payments and the payments were coming from the advance payment credit in their joint home loan account. Ms Cahill stated, and Mr Cahill did not dispute, that she had not agreed to such payments, or a half of such payments, being credited as non-agency payments. I accept her evidence on that issue.
7. I referred Mr Cahill to the evidence he had provided which indicated that he had continued transferring payments from his personal account to the home loan account. I noted that the home loan account statement did not have any corresponding credits. He was unable to explain that discrepancy and he did not comment on the evidence he had previously provided.
8. The objections officer decided to not credit payments of $602.50 which were said to have been made on 9 November 2023, 23 November 2023, 7 December 2023, 21 December 2023, 4 January 2024, 18 January 2024, 1 February 2024, 15 February 2024, 14 March 2024, 9 May 2024, 23 May 2024, 6 June 2024, 20 June 2024 and 4 July 2024. Mr Cahill did not make those payments, and they therefore cannot be credited as non-agency payments. Further, Ms Cahill did not intend for the repayments that occurred via the joint home loan advance payment credit to be credited as non-agency payments. The objections officer's decisions to not credit the payments as mutual intention non‑agency payments were correct.
9. A payment can also be credited under section 71C of the Registration Act as a prescribed non-agency payment. One of the requirements of section 71C is that the payer actually made the payment. Another requirement is that when the payment was made, the payer had less than 14% care of all of the children. At all relevant times, Mr Cahill was recorded as providing at least 14% care for the children. The payments cannot be credited as prescribed non-agency payments.

The Child Support Registrar is referred, in particular, to paragraph 8 of the Tribunal's Statement of Reasons.