A large part of divorce in Japan, or anywhere else, is the fair division of assets between the spouses. With bank accounts, retirement funds and other cash-based assets, this is a relatively easy task and the asset can usually be divided equally in half. However, for physical assets, such as a house or car, it is easy to calculate the total value and split the value in half but the asset itself cannot be divided. Therefore, usually one spouse will receive the entire asset and be burdened with the obligation to pay back the other spouse for half of its value. This can sometimes result in one spouse owing a substantial amount of money to the other as part of a divorce.
In these situations, many spouses are unable to pay off these debts all at once. This problem can sometimes be solved though a well organized installment payment plan but many spouses also want to know whether they can simply reduce their child support payments until their ex-partner has paid off his or her debt. For example, if the wife took the family car that was worth one million yen, the husband might ask that his child support payments be reduced and applied to the wife’s 500,000 yen debt to him.
While this might seem like a reasonable solution because it prevents one spouse from having to pay child support, only to get it back as an installment payment later, Japanese family courts are reluctant to endorse this approach. The reasoning behind judicial reluctance to this strategy is that child support is essentially designed to provide economic support for the children of a divorced couple. Therefore, the custodial parent should not be able to agree to reduce it in exchange for lowering his or her own private debt.
However, even though this approach is not favored by courts, even the most strict of judges will recognize the futility of having one spouse pay child support only to get money back as an installment payment on a debt. Therefore, if the parties work closely with attorneys and mediators, a reduction in child support payments to compensate for a private debt can be put into a divorce agreement that the family court will usually be willing to approve.