Hello,
I have two children with my ex. One lives with me, the other with her, our arrangements to see the non-residential child are equal. She is married and has two household incomes and also lives in social housing paying £450 a month rent.
I only have one household income, and have had to rent privately to provide for my son, my rent is £950 a month.
My ex also has a much more expensive lifestyle, her house has two new cars for example, they can also afford holidays whereas I cannot.
She has decided to claim CMS off me, and says I can claim off her. I feel this is really unfair because whilst I do earn more money than she does, after taking into account her household income and bills I have much less left over at the end of the month. Do you know if there is anything that can be done? I believe CMS do not take these details into account and only look at income.
hi,
unfortunately CMS will not take into account her partners income etc. but CMS should be able to give you reductions in maintenance because the kids spend x number of nights with you. but in theory if you both have equal day to day care of children, there should be no maintenance to pay. can get confusing. I heard that 2 parents can open 2 CMS cases against each other.
here is their leaflet with their rules and guidelines: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/how-we-work-out-child-maintenance/how-we-work-out-child-maintenance
this CMS support group on facebook is very useful. check it out: https://www.facebook.com/groups/239699060076601
Thank you for the reply. It is very confusing! I have seen that another gov leaflet ( https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/336698/child-living-arrangements.pdf) it mentions -
Q: What happens if the day-to-day care of a child
is equal between a paying parent and a receiving
parent?
A: In this situation, the paying parent does not have
to pay any child maintenance for that child.
This is so confusing. Different gov places state different things. I have also seen this website that says we cancel eachother out https://www.nacsa.co.uk/equal-shared-care
I have no idea who or what to believe when they all state different things.
can tell CMS you both have equal care of kids, so to close case, quoting above information.
But frustratingly I have seen other gov places where it mentions split care of two children and says we can each claim of the other. This all makes no sense at all. They say very different things from page to page. Even on the calc website ( https://www.gov.uk/calculate-child-maintenance) it mentions you do not have to pay if you split care equally. But I have been told this would be for children living at ONE address, if one child lives at one address and the other at the other person's then you can claim off eachother...