43Maintenance and accumulation

43 Maintenance and accumulation (1) Where any property is held in trust for a person who is for the time being a child for any interest whatsoever, whether vested or contingent, and whether absolute or liable to be divested, the trustee may at his or her sole discretion pay to the parent or guardian (if any) of the child, or to the person with whom the child is for the time being residing, or otherwise apply the whole or any part of the income of the property, for or towards the maintenance, education or benefit of the child. (2) The power conferred by subsection (1) may be exercised whether there is any other fund applicable to the same purpose, or any person bound by law to provide for the maintenance or education of the child, or not. (3) The power conferred by subsection (1) shall not prejudice or affect any prior interest in or charge over the property. (4) Where the interest for which the property is held in trust for the child is future or contingent, and the trust for the child would not, apart from this section, carry the intermediate income, and the intermediate income is not expressly or specifically disposed of but would pass to some other person only because of an interest to which he or she is entitled under a residuary or a general gift in the trust instrument, or in the absence of such a gift then as upon intestacy or as upon a resulting trust, the trust for the child shall, during the childhood, if the interest of the child so long continues, be deemed to carry the intermediate income, and the interest of such person shall not be deemed to be a prior interest within the meaning of this section. (5) During the childhood, if the interest of the child so long continues, the trustee shall accumulate all the residue of the income in the way of compound interest by investing the same, and the resulting income from time to time on securities on which he or she is by the trust instrument or by law authorised to invest the trust money. (6) During the childhood, if the interest of the child so long continues, the trustee may at any time, if he or she thinks fit, apply the accumulations or any part of them as if the same were income arising in the then current year. (7) In the following cases the trustee shall hold the accumulations absolutely for the child: (a) if otherwise than by virtue of this section the child is entitled to the income which has been accumulated; (b) if, under the provisions of the trust instrument, the child is entitled on reaching 18 years old or on the happening of an earlier event to a vested interest, whether absolute or liable to be divested, or in full ownership in the property from which the income arose, and the child in fact becomes entitled to such vested interest. (8) Any accumulations held in trust in accordance with subsection (7) do not affect the provisions of any settlement made by the child under a Territory law during his or her childhood. (9) Except in the cases mentioned in subsection (7), and notwithstanding that the person for whom the property is held in trust had a vested interest in the income by virtue of this section, the trustee shall hold the accumulations as an accretion to the capital of the property from which the accumulations arose, and as a single fund with such capital for all purposes. (10) This section extends to a vested annuity in like manner as if the annuity were the income of property held by a trustee in trust to pay the income of it to the annuitant for the same period for which the annuity is payable, save that in any case accumulations made during the childhood of the annuitant shall be held in trust for the annuitant absolutely. (11) This section applies to a trust except so far as the contrary intention