Welcome to the DAD.Info forum: We are not open to new posts at this time
Our forum aims to provide support and guidance where it can, however we may not always have the answer. The forum is not moderated 24 hours a day, so If you – or someone you know – are being harmed or in immediate danger of being harmed, call the police on 999.
Alternatively, if you are in crisis, please call Samaritans on 116 123.
If you are worried about you or someone you know is at risk of harm, please click here: How we can help
After over 6 years of regularly paying my ex Child Maintenance every single month (even when i was out of work i still paid her) she has decided to get what is now the Child Maintenace Service involved as for some reason she thinks i earn loads of money even dispite the fact that for years i was paying her way over what i should have so the rent was paid on the house leaving me so short of money that i couldn't afford to eat!! The CMS was nice enough to send me a letter saying i was earning over 20% more than i actually was and that i should be paying nearly £600 a month for my 2 children. Absolute Joke! For those who have not been through this, the CMS (which is replacing the CSA) work out what you pay based on your taxable income (which will include any bonuses, overtime etc) instead of what you actually take home, which is totally ridiculous as these amounts are vastly different. Yes they have then changed the percentages down to 9% for 1 child and 14% for 2 but still this is on money you earn not what you actually get paid! After speaking to the CMS (which by the way takes a long time to go through) the amount should be nearly halved but this is still £90 a month more than the CSA calculator works it out based on your take home money!
I dont have a problem paying child maintenance, after all i have been doing it for over 6 years now, but now my household is going to suffer because of it!
One question i am hoping someone can help me with though is around the amount of time i have my children. It works out that i have them 1 night a week, so this reduces your payments down by 1/7th, thats fine. But my Parents also have them 1 night a week as well, does anyone know if this will also be taken into account? Surely as they are with my parents this should bring it down a further 1/7th?I would ask the CMS directly but i want to use this reason on an appeal as the mother has upset me so much that she can wait for her money.
Any help / advise would be gratefully accepted
That's a tricky one - it's been asked before but I don't think we have ever had an answer to it. The other problem is the we don't have experience of the CMS on here (well, not yet).
I would tend to agree with the idea of the extra night counting towards a reduction - it might be worth having a general conversation with the CMS to see what they think - in theory, they should be able to give a simple factual answer to a straight question.
- Samaritans – call 116 123
- Shout – text the word ‘Shout’ to 85258
