[Solved] Shared Care - CSA

Hi and welcome

I'm afraid that as she claims child benefit, she is considered the parent with care so you do have to pay her maintenance - the level of her earnings is totally irrelevant in the calculation, it goes purely on your earnings, and then a deduction of 1/7th of what you pay for each 52 nights per year your children spend with you. This is all you are required to pay, so if your informal agreement is to pay beyond the level of the CSA calculation, you don't need to pay. You could come to a family based arrangement which formalises the whole thing, but otherwise the CSA calculator gives what the CSA would enforce. Make sure that any money you pay to her is through a bank account, and add a reference of child maintenance, just in case the CSA do become involved.

Thanks for the reply. So much for equality eh!

Should she go to CSA, does CSA only begin when the amount is formalised and asked for? We have never previously had any formal agreement written down as far as amounts and dates payments should start - from this I assume that CSA are not able to backdate payments beyond the time that they were involved. Could you clarify this please?

The CSA will only calculate from he date they are asked to take the case and inform you, BUT there seem to have been a number of cases where the father hasn't received that communication and weren't aware arrears were building up. Make sure that any money you are paying is clearly marked as child maintenance so you have evidence you have been paying.

In fact, the calculation I gave above is out of date - in the event of shared care, the maintenance is the normal maintenance divided by two, PLUS a further reduction of £7 per week for each child.

I'm in a very similar situation. Is it possible to have the child benefit shared if there is a shared care order in place?

Not by the Benefits Agency - as far as they are concerned, one of the parents is always the main carer. If you are able to come to an agreement with your ex, then you could go for a family based arrangement with regards to maintenance and then you can work out whatever arrangements suit you best.

How can this be right? It is totally unfair.

Until recently I was in a very similar situation with my ex (50 / 50 split).

Just before our daughter started school I proposed to my ex that it would be better for our daughter if she stayed at her mums more (I am sure she thought I was less interested and was trying to palm my daughter off on her, which clearly I wasn't). Now my daughter is at her Mums through the week and comes to me at the week ends (alternates between the whole week end and half the week end)

When I altered the arrangements I was less local to her mums and the school and it would have been very difficult and unfair on my daughter to travel the distance when she would have been with me during the week. Now that I have moved, I am more local and would be able to commute to the school far easier.

Now, my ex works little and I am sure claims x,y and z from whatever she can and relies on the payment from me each month.

I would very much like to go back to shared care and am 99.9% sure the ex will kick off at the thought of reduced payments (or if you were being fair no payments). The idea of our daughter spending less time with her would not be her first reaction.

Whats the best way to handle this?

Any advice greatly appreciated

If you think she will kick off, then mediation may be the way forwards - www.nfm.org.uk

I think the first step is always to try and talk about it.

The method of calculating mediation to include reductions for overnight contact is bound to create problems and if it were changed I know that the problems caused by this would be hugely diminished!