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Hi,
I am going through a separation and I am worried that we could financially lose the family home. In a nutshell, my wife has had an affair and decided she wishes to leave me. Our house is currently almost unsellable to recent High Speed Rail announcements which means we will have to try and seek compensation which will take months if not years. My wife was a paying contributor to the house, now she has no job which means things are already tight. When she leaves I will be left in a house on my own which I can barely afford, but can keep. However, if my wife were to involve the CSA for our 2 children and they did not take into account the mortgage, council tax and utility costs etc... and placed an order against me, I would not be able to pay the mortgage. This would cause the house to be repossessed and we would stand to lose 000's of £'s. So my question is " Will the CSA look at this situation and take it into account to ensure the bills can be met, or would they make a blind judgement regardless of circumstances?" Just on a side note. I do not wish to be an absent father and hope to have 50-50 access, but that is another story. If she does not want that I am not sure what my chances are of getting it.
I don't know too much about this set up/ system, but I very much doubt that they would take into account all of those things, otherwise whats to stop an absent father (who wants to be absent) getting themselves a huge house/ mortgage so they didn't have to pay for their kids? I think its more worked out on income after tax.
The CSA will take into account debts that were taken on before the separation where those debts were for the benefit of the family, but I don't know whether that includes a mortgage, and even if it does, it's still only going to reduce your commitments a little, not stop them until the house is sold.
Once your ex leaves, the council tax will reduce by 25% and hopefully your other bills will also go down because there is only you living there. It may be worth contacting the mortgage company, explaining the situation to them and asking if they can convert your mortgage to interest only repayments until the house is sold - that could reduce your payments considerably.
Hello Andrewm1207
Thank you for your post. I am William, the Child Maintenance Options consultant. I understand you and your wife are going through separation and you are worried that you are going to lose your home. You have asked that if your wife made an application for child maintenance through the Child Support Agency (CSA) would they take into account your finances.
The CSA works out child maintenance payments as a percentage of your income. This is to ensure that payments are affordable. Your income includes earnings, money from an occupational or personal pension and tax credits. They use the amount of income left after deductions such as Income Tax, National Insurance and any money paid into a personal pension scheme. The CSA cannot take all individual circumstances into account and they would not usually take into account your household bills, but they do apply the same rules to everyone.
You mentioned in your post that you do not wish to be an absent father and that you would like to share the care of your children with your wife. There are allowances that the CSA take into account which can reduce your child maintenance payments such as, your children staying overnight with you on average at least one night a week. The reduction will take in to account the number of times the children stay overnight with you. For full information on how maintenance is calculated you may wish to speak to the CSA directly. Their contact details can be found at http://www.gov.uk/childmaintenance.
You also mentioned in your post that you are not sure what your chances are of getting shared residency of your children. If you have got any questions or concerns over contact you may wish to get in touch with National Family Mediation or Centre for Separated Families who are experts in this area. Their details are listed below.
National Family Mediation
Website: www.nfm.org.uk
Centre for Separated Families
Website: www.separatedfamilies.info
No-one has to arrange child maintenance through the CSA. If you can reach an agreement with your wife, you can make a family-based arrangement. With this type of agreement you can both decide what counts as child maintenance and it can be a combination of financial assistance and contributing towards other things like clothes, school uniforms and even sharing the care of your children. A family-based arrangement is not legally binding but it gives you the flexibility to change your agreement as your children get older or yours or your wife's circumstances change.
If you would like an idea how much child maintenance the CSA could work out using their guidelines, you can use our online calculator. This is on our website at www.cmoptions.org/en/calculator. You may wish to use this figure as a starting point to negotiate a family-based arrangement.
If you want some help planning your conversation or talking to your wife about money, we have a "discussion guide" to help you. We also have a family-based arrangement form that can help put your agreement on a more formal basis. You can find these on our website at www.cmoptions.org.
If you are worried about losing your home, you may wish to speak to your mortgage provider to see if they can help you in anyway.
We have a sorting out separation web-app that you may find useful, it offers help and support to separated families. You can find this at: http://www.cmoptions.org/en/sortingoutseparation/index.asp.
To find out more about how Child Maintenance Options can help you visit our website or if you would prefer a friendly and confidential chat, please call us on 0800 988 0988.
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