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I have custody of our 16 year old son, and at the time of the divorce we agreed she would pay me £300 per month in maintenance. This equated to a little less than the 15% but given the stress and hassle of getting more I agreed.
Last year she took redundancy from work. I know, as I work at the same company, that it was voluntary but it is deemed compulsory in the final letter to facilitate benefit claims etc. She would have got a little over 2 years salary plus cash incentives.
She has chosen to study for a degree to re-skill and is therefore not, in any way, looking for a job.
She is now saying that she is out of work and cannot afford to pay the agreed amount and has stated she is now going to pay £150 per month, to be reviewed by her if/when she gets a job.
I would have had every sympathy with her taking this line towards the end of 2 years when her redundancy money ran out, but we are around six months after the fact. She has had the house redecorated, bought lots of new furniture and taken holidays abroad whilst refusing to pay one single penny extra towards school trips and even expects me to drop our son off and collect him when he visits.
Can I fight this somehow? Or am I just missing a point somewhere? It is sometimes easy to lose perspective when you are in the middle of the situation.
Thanks for any advice
It sounds like a loop hole in the law, technically out of work regardless of pay offs. I'm pretty sure that people who are out of work still have to provide proof of previous earnings, I'm sure that would include any redundancy payments etc.
There are others on the forum who know their legal stuff better than me and could help you more, I know it's a difficult situation but give it a while and one of the guys here will give you some solid advice. Good luck pal.
Hi there 🙂
According to the CSA, if your ex is a full time student she doesnt have to pay you anything. As far as her assets are concerned I dont think they can be counted unless in excess of £65,000, but there may be some clause about redundancy pay.
Have you spoken to the CSA about this, they will be able to advise you, or you could talk to the Citizens Advice Bureau.
I would accept the offer of £150 whilst you look into it.
As I understand the rules, NJ has it exactly correct - if you go through the CSA, you will get nothing at all, so I would definitely be inclined to accept her offer of 150 per month until she's back at work.
In fact,, even if she had over 65k in assets back then, I doubt she still does, so that can be discounted now - and the faster she spends the money she has, the quicker she'll have to look for a job.
Dear Pkyle99
I am William the Child Maintenance Options consultant. Thank you for your post. With you and your son's mother having a family-based arrangement already in place, this is simply an agreement between you both to decide what is best for you son. Family-based arrangements are not legally binding, however, they can be quick, easy and flexible to change if your circumstances do.
You may wish to negotiate any issues surrounding your arrangement to put it back on track. This can be done by your selves or with the help of friends, family, the options Discussion Guide or with the help of a professional mediator.
If a family-based arrangement is not suitable for you, you still have other options including a statutory child maintenance arrangement with the Child Support Agency (CSA). The CSA has four different maintenance rates and the rate that's to be paid is dependent on the paying parent's weekly net income. The four different rates are as follows:
- Basic rate is for paying parents with a weekly gross income of between £200 and £799.99 (and Basic Plus for paying parents with a gross weekly income of £800 or more)
- Reduced rate is for paying parents on a weekly net income of between £100 and £199.99
- Nil rate is where paying parents are in full-time education, under sixteen, in prison or living in care
- Flat rate is when paying parents pay a flat rate of £5 child maintenance per week, no matter how many children they have, if their weekly net income is between £5 and £100. This also applies if the partner they live with is in receipt of Income Support, income-based Jobseeker's Allowance or Pension Credit.
You can find further information regarding the different rates online at www.gov.uk/child-maintenance. If you have any questions about how they calculate maintenance, or if you'd like more details about their service, you may want to speak to them directly.
They have two schemes available Direct Pay and Collect and Pay. Direct Pay is where the CSA calculates child maintenance and then leaves you and your son's mother to agree together how your payments will be made. Once they have calculated the maintenance amount, the CSA will not contact you or your son's mother again unless circumstances change or if they are told that your son's mother has missed or fallen behind with his payments. Collect and Pay is where they calculate, collect and enforce payments on your behalf. If an application is made with the CSA, your son's mother responsibility to pay will start from around the time the CSA contacts her. You can find more information about their service online at http://www.gov.uk/child-maintenance.
If this arrangement is not appropriate or does not work for you, you may wish to consider a Consent Order. This is an official ruling made by a court. You and your children's father agree together how much maintenance needs to be paid and how often before going to court.
If you look at the Options website at www.cmoptions.org.uk you will find some useful tools to help you like a discussion guide, maintenance calculator and family-based arrangement form you can use. If you would like to talk to our team in complete confidence about your family-based arrangement you could give them a ring on 0800 988 0988.
There is a Sorting out separation web-app on this site at http://www.dad.info/divorce-and-separation/sorting-out-separation that you may find useful as it offers help and support to separating families.
I Hope this helps.
William
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