Hi all,
OK I know the rules and I have been paying maintenance for my 2 kids for 5 years based on CSA rules. My daughter lived with her mum full time and my son stays with me 3 nights a week, (Sunday 12pm until wed 4pm).
My daughter is now 18 so I'm am stopping what I pay for her and dropping the maintenance down to 150 a month.
That might be less than what is due but here's the thing, I pay for all my son's clothes, phone and transport so I feel I shouldn't pay anything really as she only has him one day more a week than me. Using the calculator I should be paying about 200. My ex has also just gone back to work, she had been quite happy to stay on benefits until my daughter turned 18. My son is 16.
Im all for child maintenance for absent fathers but I think the system sucks for people like me who basically share all the duties of care but have an ex who take take takes. She gets the child benefit and I get nothing because it can only go to one parent. I have no communication now with my ex as she is jealous of my relationship with my partner of 3 years so I've not told her the money is going down and I'm expecting a back lash. Tbh I'm hoping she puts a claim in.
Hello trinity
As you have a family-based arrangement in place, it is up to the two of you to decide the terms and conditions of it. This includes the amount paid as well as when the arrangement ends.
When calculating the amount that is paid, the amount of overnight stays that you have of the children should be taken into account. The Online calculator on the Child Maintenance Options website, http://www.cmoptions.org, will provide an estimation of the amount that the Government would consider reasonable for you to pay. If the Child Maintenance Service calculated your payments for you, you would not be legally responsible to pay anything more than that. Neither would you be responsible to pay for other items.
Child Benefit payments should be made to the parent with the main care of a child, even if it is only narrowly more care, that parent is still classed as the main carer. That parent is also entitled to child maintenance, albeit at a lower rate if the other parent has overnight stays. If the care of a child is split exactly 50/50, there would be no maintenance liability.
The receiving parent’s income has no bearing on the amount that the paying parent should pay.
Maintenance payments should end when a child is 16, or when they are 20 if they are still in full-time, non-advanced education. Full-time is classed as a minimum of 12 hours per week and non-advanced is any standard up to and including A-level standard or equivalent. Maintenance payments also run in line with Child Benefit, so if those payments are still being received, maintenance payments should be also.
If you would like any further information about the options available to set up maintenance arrangements or to receive a more personalised service, you can contact Child Maintenance Options directly.
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