[Solved] Calculating Child Payments

Hi there,

Welcome along,

As far as I know you should be looking at the 1 child that isn't living with you, put in your wage, number of nights he/she spends with you and enter the 2 children that live with you, this would give you the amount that you pay your children's mum for the child that lives with her, if you experience works it would be similar for her.......her wage, number of nights the 2 children stay over night with her and the 1child that's at home with her and that's what she would pay you.

Depending on if she works it might not be worth the exchanging anything and the 2of you just live off your own earnings, have you considered child benefits and who they get paid too?

I would imagine with the divorce and child care your going through it at the moment, if you need to know anything at all with regards to child law we can ask our, legal team to advise as long as you don't have a solicitor already that is, with regards to the divorce I'm sure lots of us can draw from our own experiences.

If you have managed to work out how the children will be cared for between you it may be worth having this written into a legal agreement so that minds can't just be changes when the mood takes.

Darren

As I understand it, treat the two situations separately - ie. calculate the maintenance based on her income with two children living with you and the children spending so many nights with your ex - this is the amount your ex would be liable to pay you (and you'd get child benefit for 2 children).

The calculate the maintenance based on your income on one child living with your ex with that child staying with you for so many nights - this is the amount you would pay your ex (your ex would get child benefit for one child).

The difference is the amount that one of you will pay the other - whichever way that goes.

It may then be worth using these figures to try to work out a family based arrangement if you can.

Thanks to both of you, that's helpful. The children's care is not agreed (and I'm not happy with the current arrangement) but want to make sure I pay enough. I don't know her income but I can have a pretty close guess. Good to find this place.

I'll ask the CMO to pop on and check on the information I've given, so keep an eye out for their responsel.

Hi I'm Sarah, a consultant at Child Maintenance Options. Sorry for the delay in replying.

The definition of parent with care (also known as the receiving parent and sometimes called the main carer) is the person with whom the child has his/her home and who usually provides day to day care of the child. The parent who receives Child Benefit is classed as the receiving parent for child maintenance purposes.

The non-resident parent (also known as the paying parent) is the parent without the main day-to-day care of the child.

As Darren and actd say, you should look at the two situations separately. If you are the parent with care for one child and non-resident parent for the other child, you should do two different calculations based on your different roles. The calculation is based on a percentage of the paying parent's income, so If you and your children's other parent have different levels of income, this would explain why the amounts you each have to pay are different.

If you want to talk this through in more detail, or you want help deciding which type of child maintenance arrangement is best for your circumstances, give Child Maintenance Options a call on 0800 988 0988.

I hope this helps.

Sarah.