I recently moved away to a different part of the country and no longer have shared care of my children. My ex told CMS about one of the children affected when i moved but not the other. i have now had a letter stating shared care has changed and this may affect my future child maintenance payments. My question is can this be backdated to the date she has said in the letter. therefore i will have built up arrears in the intervening 6 months? I was always under the assumption that changes to payements were only from the date of notification.
Anyone been in this situation or found any literature that states this to be true either way
As far as I am aware, there is a duty to notify CMS as soon as any changes occur, so any failure to notify them of changes can be a reason to backdate any changes.
Thanks I think that may be the case. I did notify CM that I had moved so I did my part sort of. If they hit me with arrears can I offer to pay over an extended period as my payments for 2 are currently over £700and likely to rise by anothr £200 month
just reread the letter and it doesn't say i should notify change of shared care, just address,income etc.
i'm not trying to get out of paying always have and always will just any arrears added would financially hammer me. can i offer a longer repayment plan if the add arrears?
also taht child will be spending some weekends and lots of holidays with me over the course of the year so may well hit the 52 nights (just) it also states on the letter that if shared care is not agreed they will apply the 1 in 7 banding. Do i just go with this?
hi,
yes if there are lots of arrears and your struggling, you can ask CMS to spread the repayment over 2 years. I have heard some instances where they have done more than 2 years. If kids will not be staying overnight with you at all every month, then it seems you would have to accept their change/increase in payments. if kids stay with you for 4 nights a month (every other weekend), then that's classed as 1 night a week shared care. if you travel long distance to pick up and drop kids, then you can claim special expense with cms, has to be more than £10 a week fuel cost.
there's other special expenses you may eligible for e.g if you support other children:
https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/other-financial-commitments-child-maintenance-cases#:~:text=These%20are%20called%2 0'special%20expenses,or%20a%20long%2Dterm%20illness