[Solved] Scared and Struggling

I'm only talking from experience. I find them very difficult to deal with. I lost my job a few years ago, and they were not very sympathetic, would not even accept my P45 as proof that I had left! I find that if you get a woman on the phone they are much more difficult than the men.

If your ex has gone to a solicitor, then it is likely that they will advise them to open a case with the CMS. So just be prepared.

The advantage of you opening a case with CMS (£20 to do this) is that you can close the case later on when you think you should no longer be paying - if the mother opens the case, then she has to agree to close it. The reason I said to use CMS instead of court is that any agreement reached over maintenance in court (except in certain limited circumstances) and be overridden after 12 months by CMS, so if you've paid more than CMS suggest in the first 12 months, you don't get that back. The courts are usually happy to abide by CMS calculations for child maintenance. This isn't taking away from what Yoda94 has said about them being difficult to deal with, but if yours is fairly straightforward, then CMS certainly makes things formal and easy to manage.

hi,

i would say it all depends on your ex. if you have private arrangement for maintenance and she starts giving you grief, stressing you out over it, then you should go to CMS as a last resort. in my case i signed myself up to CMS pretty quick. as other side quickly entered benefit scrounging mode, begging for back-dated payments and disputing what i want to pay. divorce is bad enough. don't need more [censored] like this to stress about.