Hello,
My son is 18 (DOB 4/4/2000). I have paid maintenance all his life. He dropped out of A levels in January 2017 and was then out of education until September 2017. He then went to college where he didn't attend and then dropped out June 2018. From August 2017 he has worked for Iceland, he then took full time employment (40hrs) with this firm from June 2018. We agreed with his mother that the final payment would be today 31st August. I have payed her throughout all this time even when he was out of education. Kirk was certain he did not want to go back into education and informed us only four weeks ago he was having rows with his mum about the fact he didn't want to go back to college but she wanted him to and even told him that I would stop paying if he didn't go back to college. However today he contacted us that he was going back to college and that we should sort out with his mother the "money". He will continue part time employment at Iceland whilst he attempts yet another course.
Can you please advise where we stand with this and whether we do in fact have to continue paying?
Hi there
If he's returning to full time (more than 12hrs a week), non advanced education, which includes college, then you would be expected to continue payment.
If you have a private family arrangement, it would be up to you to negotiate the terms of payment with the mother.
If payments are set by the CSA/CMS they would expect payments to continue until he leaves full time education, or reaches the age of 20.
Hello Starwars442000
To reiterate the information Mojo has supplied, child maintenance would usually be expected to be paid until your son reaches 20 years old if he is in full-time (an average of 12 hours or more per week of supervised study), non-advanced (up to and including A-level equivalent) education.
As a general rule, child maintenance is expected to be paid while ever a child is eligible for Child Benefit. You can find more information about when child maintenance and Child Benefit stops on Gov.uk at https://www.gov.uk/when-child-maintenance-payments-stop.
For information on the different ways to set up child maintenance and for a more personalised service, you can visit the Child Maintenance Options website at http://www.cmoptions.org.
The DWP have a sorting out separation website that you may find useful. It offers help and support to separating and separated families. The link is: https://www.sortingoutseparation.org.uk/.
Regards
William