Hi, I am new to the forum so hopefully I am posting in the right place.
I have a 5 year old Son with my partner. We split up in December 2012 and both remained in the family home until it was Sold at the end of August 2013. During those 8 months, I continued to pay 80% of all bills to ensure my Son was not affected by our decision. We have now moved into seperate houses and share 50:50 access of my Son with him staying 3 nights one week and 4 nights the next.
My ex partner got hold of one of my pay slips and used the CSA calculator to arrive at a figure that she felt was fair in terms of a child maintenance payment. In order to ensure I had the access to my Son, I reluctantly agreed and the first couple of payments have now started to go through.
My ex is receiving the child benefit, child care support, working tax credits etc and I receive non of this.
We recently had a small fall out following my ex requesting more money from me in order for her to fund additional things such as clothes for her house, school unfiforms, new shoes etc etc. Whilst I obviously do not want my Son to go without, I refused to make any additional payments as felt that the money that I had agreed to pay, was more than enough to cover the cost of the items she had listed outright.
When we discussed the matter, she highlighted trhat as far as she was concerned, my payment was to cover day to day living costs including her mortgage and bills for her house. Other items that she had listed where seen in her eyes to be extras. In addition to the payments I am making, I am obviously having to purchase clothes for my house, addtional school uniform items for my house along with food / entertainment etc whilst he is with me.
I would give anything I have to my Son to make sure he is happy and does not want for anything but the system seems unfair when she can effectively use any money she receives from me to fund her own lifestyle, asking for more when she sees fit, despite the fact we have an equal share of our child.
When I raised the subject, it was met with a threat of reducing my access as she knew that this would mean I would receive less of a reduction in the eyes of the CSA and therefore hit me both on an emotional and financial basis.
Has anyone else been in this situation and is there anything I can do to maintain the access with my Son but pay a fair and reasonable contribution to the joint costs involved in his upbrining?
It is creating a bad feeling between us and where I would have been more than happy to support additional costs for those special occassions, I feel like I am being taken for a bit of a mug if I do.
Any thoughts / advice welcome.
Maintenance payments are calculated on a percentage of your salary, you have no control on how this money is spent but you are not liable for any extra costs.
Perhaps you might like to consider trying mediation, at least it would give you the opportunity to be able to discuss the situation with some unbiased guidance from the trained mediator. Maintenance payments and contact are two entirely different issues and contact should not be used as coercion to get extra money. If she carries out her threat to reduce the time you spend with your son then you can as a last resort apply through the court for a contact order.
Here's a link to the mediation service www.nfm.org.uk ....legal aid is still available for mediation and you can check eligibility here www.gov.uk/check-legal-aid
This really isn't unusual for money and contact to go hand in hand but it never should.
As already said I would try and get to mediation to enable you to both discuss this better.
GTTS
Hi DD1973
Thank you for your post, I am William the Child Maintenance Options consultant. In your post you have indicated that you have a family-based arrangement in place with your ex-partner. With you having a family-based arrangement in place with your ex-partner, you may wish to try to discuss and negotiate with her the amount of your maintenance payments. With a family-based arrangement there are no strict rules or formulas to follow when calculating child maintenance. Family-based arrangements are not legally binding, however, they give you the flexibility to change your arrangement as your son gets older and his needs change, or if either you or your ex-partner has a change in circumstances.
To help you and your ex-partner continue with your family-based arrangement we have some useful tools and guides available to download from our website at http://www.cmoptions.org/en/toolbox/index.asp.
If you would like an indication of how much maintenance you may receive if an application were made via the Child Support Agency (CSA), you can use our online calculator. This is on our website at www.cmoptions.org/en/calculator. You may want to use this figure as a starting point for negotiations to make a family-based arrangement.
If you feel a mediator will help you renegotiate your agreement the following link will provide contact details for organisations in your area that offer a mediation service http://find-legal-advice.justice.gov.uk/. Contact and maintenance are not linked in law, therefore disruptions over should not affect the other.
You mentioned that you ex-partner has asked that the maintenance is increased to help with extra things that your son needs, however, you believe this is what your maintenance payment covers. Child maintenance is a contribution towards the cost of bringing up a child and this includes not only such items as food and clothing but also it is a contribution towards the home that the child lives in and the associated costs of running that home. Paying parents are legally responsible only for the amount worked out by the CSA, and do not have to contribute for anything extra, unless they wish to do so.
We have a Sorting Out Separation web-app that you may find useful. It offers help and support to separating and separated families. The link is: www.dad.info/divorce-and-separation/sorting-out-separation.
If you would a confidential chat with Child Maintenance Options team or find out more about all the options available for child maintenance, you can call us free on 0800 988 0988 between 8am and 8pm Monday to Friday or 9am and 4pm on Saturday, alternatively you can visit our website at http://www.cmoptions.org.
William
this is exactly why the csa is wrong, as soon as the ex with care wants more money they happily go along and take it, there was a good relationship between two adults here ruined by greed, it makes me sick, when the parents have 50 50 contact I dont understand why money has to change hands?? to be totally honest I dont understand the 'well your childs csa money goes on things like heating your ex's house' if the child wasent there that house would still need the heating on!!!! Im not saying as NRP we shouldnt pay towards our kids, Im saying we should pay for things which affect our childs life 100% IE school clothes, shoes, hair cuts, meals, these are the things which the child needs when we have them, I wonder what would happen if all NRP's just overnight stopped paying, what could they do?? surely theres not enough space in the prisons for us all, they can tell us they are taking our homes, what if we just let them?? what if we stopped working?? all of us, not just afew ALL, the system couldnt cope (in my opinion) when we hand over cash either cash in the hand (which is illegal in employment terms) or bank transfer or csa we dont know if that money is going on our child/children directly or funding an ex's lifestyle, thats what causes NRP's to not want to pay, nothing else, just that, plus on the top of this the csa gets stopped before any living expenses for the NRP, so lets say Im on 200 pounds a week (gross) I pay 20% tax, my takehome pay now is 160 quid, csa payment is 20 pounds a week, new takehome pay = 140 quid, rent per month (because ex and child live at family home) = 400 pounds, 2 bed terrace nothing flash, monthly spare income = 160, monthly council tax (single person discount) is 75 pounds, 85 pounds left now, gas+elec+water rates+tv licence+phone oh look Im now in debt each month, in this post I said 'let them take the house, the csa' the above figures show that if they dont take the house then the courts will anyway!!!! 'get a better job' I can hear PWC shout, but how can I when Im now working school hours to be a good parent and collect them from school, interact with other parents/ teachers so I know how my child is progressing, if I didnt speak to other parents and they didnt know me would they let their kids come to mine for my childs birthday party?? its ok talking people, its having the bottle to make a change, it scares me to death thinking about the future, I honestly believe as this generations NRP's we might have to make a stand, this post has gone on way too long!!!!! but if your home is at risk from the debt brought on by csa payments, extra living costs due to seperation, then is it that fair from the truth????
Hi all, thanks for the comments and links to the different leaflets etc.
NRP11, I hear where you are coming from and agree with many of your points. I believe that some consdieration should be given to the NRP's circumstances over and above the weekly pay. I guess the thing that frustrates me the most is the fact that I am effectively making payments to my ex partner to help pay the bills of the house she is now living in and will continue to do so for the next 11 years + regardless of how her circumstances change. Whilst I would have no issue with this if my Son was there the vast majority of the time (I obviously want to make sure he has a roof over his head and is kept warm, entertained etc) when we have the 50:50 access in place, half his time is spent with me but I am not receiving any support to help cover my expenses, I am infact being told to pay more out.
As in my first post, my ex get's all of the benefits she does as a result of my Son being "registered" at her house. These benefits would have been greatly reduced if he had been registered at my property. If it had gone that way, I would have received some of these benefits and an additional £100 per month off my ex based on CSA calculations and other than the paperwork completed, there would have been absolutley no change in the way the access works.
Surely that isn't right is it?
As much as I hate to say this - it seems as if you may be better off paying maintenance through the CSA and at least that way you will be contributing you legal obligation towards your child. Once you are in the system, you will not legally be expected to contribute anything more unless you decided yourself to do so.
Some ex partners see the CSA as a cash cow and a way to extract extra money from the NRP which is out of order.
I'd use the online calculator to see if you would be better off going though the CSA as at least that way it cannot be used as a threat.
If you are giving a reasonable amount and are contributing in other areas then I can't see why your ex partner is being so unreasonable unless she is obsessed with money.
Best of luck either which way but don't be held to ransom.
Lloyd
If you are giving a reasonable amount and are contributing in other areas then I can't see why your ex partner is being so unreasonable unless she is obsessed with money.
Unfortunately, that's the way some ex's are. 🙁
I think the new rules, when they are finally fully introduced, will say that if care is truly 50/50, then no money changes hands, but even that isn't necessarily fair where one parent is very poor and one is wealthy as the children would suffer when staying with the poorer parent.
The only truly fair way would be that each case was assessed indivudually on it's merits, and re-assessed every year, but that just isn't a practical solution, so anything that is put in place is necessarily a compromise to speed up processing.
Well, unfortunately for me, my Ex is a little obsessed with money, hence the fact she is now my Ex.
I have heard about the new rule's and the potential that with 50:50 care there will be no need for maintenance payments from either party. I am not looking to stop paying money for the care of my Son as I want to make sure that I am paying a share of everything that is deemed as joint i.e. School uniforms, school lunches, trips, childcare etc etc. I have even thought about the fact that I do earn more money than her (her choice to only work part time) and would happily give more than 50% of these joint fees. I just feel that it is very one sided and every choice she makes has a potential impact on me. For example, she has now suggested moving him from School lunches to packed lunches. I have no issue with this but suggested that as she will no longer have a £40 bill each month for his school lunch, I reduce my family based arrangement by £20 which can then be used for the lunches I will need to make for the 10+ times per month he leaves my house in the morning (£2 per day for sandwiches, drink, fruit, snack doesn't seem far off). It doesn't seem right to me that she get's to keep the money she no longer needs to pay out for them whilst I incurr additional costs (over and above my maintenance payment) to make sure he eats at school.
I know this may sound ridiculous and appreciate that £20 a month is not a huge amount of money in the whole scheme of things but it is the principal that it's a cost that she no longer needs to pay out for him (the full amount anway) so she benefits whilst I am left further out of pocket. This is just one example of how she has requested to make changes that would mean she reduces her costs whilst forcing me to have to pay more each month.
At the moment I am paying around £30-£40 per month more than what the CSA calculator suggests but as I said earlier, the CSA calculator doesn't really take into account parents that share access equally.
Sorry, rant over now.
DD1973, did you ever get this sorted? I know its an old thread, but this story, the arrnagements, and the attitude/demands of your ex seems exactly the same as mine.
hi adibranch, dd hasn't logged on for over 2 years, so probably best that you start a new thread with your situation and hopefully get some help.