Hi there. I look after my daughter for exactly 50% of the time; I maintain a bedroom for her, feed and cloth her, buy her presents etc. I pay half her club fees, half afterschool club fees etc. Basically I pay exactly what her mother does. Yet I am expected by the CSA to pay £40 a week to her mum as maintainence. Her mum works, earns probably more than I do, lives in the marital home, and receives govt. child benefit and tax credits. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I should do?
Many thanks..
Chances are, the CSA calculation is correct. However, that is all you are obliged to pay, so club fees and after school fees are not your responsibility, so perhaps suggest that your ex pays these.
Many thanks for your reply. The problem is that I'm perfectly happy as to the amount the CSA is asking, but want to ensure the money is used for my daughter. Up to now I have paid the money direct to her mum, and have used some of the amount to pay half the after-school clubs directly. She is now insisting that the money is paid via the CSA which will mean that, unless I want my daughter wandering the street, I shall be forced to pay for some of the clubs on top of the CSA amount. Seems incredibly unfair though, having looked at some of the other queries on this forum, my concept of the CSA being a 'fair' system needs to be questioned...
Hello rdawson28
If this is a new case, it will be the Child Maintenance Service who are dealing with it, rather than the Child Support Agency (CSA). The CSA have not been accepting case since November 2013.
The Child Maintenance Service have different rules about how they work out maintenance payments. One of the differences is around shared care rules. If the paying parent can prove that they carry out an equal amount of day-to-day care as well as having equal shared care then the Child Maintenance Service regards neither parent to be the paying parent so their child maintenance would be set as nil. This applies even if one parent receives Child Benefit or tax credits as the child’s parent. Where there is equal day to day care and there is no paying parent, this means that there cannot be a statutory case and the Child maintenance Service would not be able to process the application as there is no identifiable paying parent.
If you do have to pay maintenance via the Child Maintenance Service or the CSA, you are not liable to pay anything else on top of the amount that they work out for you.
If you would like further information about all the options available to you and a more personalised service, you can contact Child Maintenance Options directly, http://www.cmoptions.org
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have a web application, ‘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 http://www.dad.info/divorce-and-separation/sorting-out-separation
Regards
William
Thanks so much William. That's really interesting and may be very helpful. It's not a new case- been ongoing over a year but up till now all was fine. It's only since the mum's demand that the money is collected by the CSA that it's become a problem. Thanks again
warmest
Robert