[Solved] Co Parenting and Child Maintenance

Good morn,

Child Maintenance is legally apportioned (by CSA/M) according to who is the resident parent, and then by how much time the child spends with each, it is based entirely on the salary of the non-resident parent. In your case there is probably nothing to be made (as you have the child half the time), but if you claim child benefit then you might well be seen as the resident parent, and therefore be able to make a claim against your ex-wife (if she claims CB she might be able to do the same though, so beware!). Somewhere in these pages you will be able to find the formula for working out CM in shared parenting cases, from memory it is 50% of 15% of the non-resident's salary after tax, NI &c.

You will both be earning over the threshold where you would have to pay the CB back, but one of you must be claiming it.

If you still get on with your ex-wife, and you feel that you have been disadvantaged, then it might be better to see if she will enter into a voluntary family based agreement and pay you for the weeks you are looking after your child (she is, according to your estimate, very comfortably off).

I can't help thinking that you are feeling a bit sore about the divorce financial settlement, and are trying to regain something via CM. Think about this carefully, I think you are fortunate in having your child for half the time, and that is the really valuable thing. You still have a comfortable income, so I really wonder whether it is worth upsetting a fairly convivial situation for some money.

Thanks Othen

I understand where you're coming from with regards to rocking the boat but I feel like I am unable to secure a house in a decent area (which she wants) with the settlement that I got. After paying a bit of a credit card bill and legal fee's there's barely enough left to put a deposit down and be able to furnish the house without getting into debt.

There are other considerations as well that I haven't detailed but they revolve around me being the person at home and her working late and away a lot which has enabled her to progress her career.

I am lucky that we have a 50:50 agreement and that I do earn a decent salary but I put anything I did have into the shared pot when married and I just don't think the settlement we agreed allows me to get myself settled in a house I own. I am going to have to rent for at least another 12 months due to my self employment so this is just dead money which is eroding an already eroded settlement.

I am in the process of applying for CB so hopefully we didn't already do that but if so and it's in her name she's not of the kind of person that would do that.

I was wrong with something I said above: the cut off for CB is £50,000, from which it reduces on a sliding scale down to zero at £60,000. If your ex-wife has been claiming CB then she will be paying it back as she earns £120,000 PA, so you might be able to persuade her that she should give it up in your favour as you would be able to keep the money - and it would be for you child. If she is a smart cookie (and I suspect she might be if she earns such a good salary) she may smell a rat and realise that you want to use it as a reason to claim CM from her, indeed she might even start claiming it from you (which she might well be entitled to as the resident parent, even if she is paying the benefit back to HMRC).

I would tread a bit carefully here, the civil servants at DWP who allocate CB are notoriously biased towards mothers, if your ex-wife tells them she is the main carer then they will almost certainly believe her, and you could end up worse off by paying CM as well.

With respect: I still can't help thinking you feel you did badly out of your divorce settlement and so you are trying to use your child to win something back. That is something we hear a great deal from mothers, but again I'd say you should think carefully before you risk changing things. There is a huge bias against dads in the family law system (I don't think so much in the courts themselves, but it is rife in CAFCASS, DWP, county council education departments and state schools), so if you upset what is quite a good arrangement for your child now you may find you lose a great deal more than money.

I am going to put an application in for CB as I really don't think we applied for it. A bit of context here - our son is adopted and came to live with us when he was 4 and is now 8 and it doesn't ring a bell about being told to apply for CB so I'm guessing we didn't.

I am aware of the bias towards mothers as I was savaged by my other sons solicitor 16 years ago which left me in a huge amount of debt racked up on doing a house up I had to sign over to her.....my solicitor basically said walk away and start again as I had very little chance of recovering any of the money.

I'm conscious of not trying to use my son in anyway to get a better deal out of this. We always said when we decided to split that we would never do that and there will never be any argument about the 50:50 as he has had enough trauma in his life and we don't want to cause more. This won't happen I'm positive.

And again, even if I do upset the apple cart I really don;t think she would try to claim CM from me. She's not like that and I might be p*ssing her off by asking for more money but it wouldn't sit well with her if she did that.

If you don't think you applied for CB in the first place then it would be sensible for you to do so now, and that would of course help a bit with your financial situation.

You sound like a decent chap, and you are putting your son first, which is what a good dad should always do. You seem to have a passably good relationship with your ex-wife, so once the CB business is sorted out perhaps that would be a good time to talk to her about CM via a family based arrangement, which would make life a bit easier for you and your son? Perhaps if you suggested she pay something like half what you might get as the resident parent via CSA (so something like 0.5*0.5*15% *£80,000=£3000 PA) she might agree? The alternative would be going through the CSA system, which is invasive would really irritate your ex-wife.

Hello MichaelM

Equal day-to-day care is where the overall care arrangements for a child is shared equally and not just where a child stays overnight with the paying parent.

If it can be proven that both parents have equal day-to-day care of their child (in addition to sharing overnight care), and that both parents provide a home for their child, then there is no requirement for either parent to pay statutory maintenance, even if one parent receives Child Benefit or Child Tax Credits as the child’s main carer.

For a more personalised response, you may wish to contact Child Maintenance Options directly at http://www.cmoptions.org.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have a website, 'Sorting out Separation'. It aims to make it much easier for separating and separated parents (and childless couples) to find the support they need, when and where they need it, and encourages them to collaborate on a range of issues. The link is https://www.sortingoutseparation.org.uk/.

Regards

William

Thanks all for your helpful advice.

The email has been sent.....a possibly ruthless 'you need to give me more settlement' but I'm hoping my justification will be appreciated and not just get her back up whatever she decides to do.

It may be that we need to talk about a monthly maintenance not including the CSA which over 10 years would total what I feel would have been a more realistic lump sum settlement.

Again ,many thanks all