Welcome to the DAD.Info forum: Important Information – open to read:
Our forum aims to provide support and guidance where it can, however we may not always have the answer. The forum is not moderated 24 hours a day, so If you – or someone you know – are being harmed or in immediate danger of being harmed, call the police on 999.
Alternatively, if you are in crisis, please call Samaritans on 116 123.
If you are worried about you or someone you know is at risk of harm, please click here: How we can help
Hi, can you please tell me if it is true that i can pay the same amount as child maintenence into my daughters savings account. I have just been through the mediation process and am now waiting for court proceedings to start for shared access to my daughter. I have not paid anything yet as i have had to use all my funds to find somewhere to live and to pay the bills, but from next months wages i should be ok to start paying some money out. I have opened a savings account and have a £5 D/D monthly paid in to my daughters account. At the last mediation meeting i was asked if i was going to pay my ex through the CSA or direct to her. I said i would speak to my solicitor who previously said to just pay either way as it would look better for me later in court. A friend at work has told me another option is to pay directly into my daughters account. Could the please let me know if this is correct and will suffice with the courts. I don't want to pay the money to my ex as she has a gambling and drug problem and i know it will be used for this and not my daughter. But i also don't want this to count against me if it is incorrect. I get just above minimum wage and take home about £950 a month. Thank you for your time.
Hi Carl, Sorry to hear about your mess. I said at one stage l would like to pay into my daughters account they said l could but would still have to pay my ex as well. As l know like you that the money will not be spent on the child.
I would check with your solicitor or l get a lot of info from http://www.nacsa.co.uk/ they are very helpfull. They charge you £20 per month to call them but you only need to pay it when you need advice not every month.
Wish you every success
Hi Carl,
Rather than paying £20.00 for NACSA and their advice, you could easily come to a private agreement with your ex or alternatively you are also welcome to contact the CSA.
There is nothing stopping you from paying into an account for your daughter, but maintenance is usually paid to the parent with care (aka your ex) as well. This is a moral duty, but if the CSA become involved, it will be a legal one.
CSA
If you go through the CSA they will expect 12% of your gross pay which is reduced by 1/7th for each night you have your children. If however you have shared care and it is 50/50 they will still calculate a rate of maintenance equal to 1/2 of your 12% gross... i'm a major critic of this, for many reasons.
Example: Based on your income: You would be expected to pay £130 per month, however with the 1/2 reduction you would still pay £65 per month to your ex
It is important to remember that the CSA (CMEC) is the worst rated Government Agency (ever) and there is a lot of responsibility which they completely neglect. Needless to say that i am definately anti-CSA.
Private Agreements
In my opinion when they work, private agreements can be so much better than CSA involvement. It is sensible to assume that private agreements will benefit your child... and not the parent with care. Some idea's are listed if shared care 5050 is not achieved:
- Monthly lump sum to your ex
- Your agreeing to pay for school uniforms
- Money into a savings account for when your daughter turns 18/21/25
- Paying half of all school trips or paying them in full
Equally, so you are aware, even if you reach a private agreement with your ex, if she is claiming Child Benefit, she is entitled to still contact the CSA to have them make an assessment. More often, this creates a rift that never seems to close.
I'd hold off paying nacsa for the moment. Unless you and your ex come to a private arrangement otherwise, any maintenance paid will have to be paid to her, so you can't pay into an account for your daughter instead - the money is for maintenance for your daughter (and don't forget that maintenance does include providing a house and untilities) and your ex can spend it however she sees fit - I understand exactly how you feel as, when my children lived with their mother, I knew that the money I paid went on drink and cigarettes, and very little on my children.
I will ask the experts at Child Maintenance Options to pop on and give any advice they can.
Hi, I'm Sarah, a Child Maintenance Options consultant.
You can make payments into your daughters savings account and this would count as child maintenance IF your ex agrees to it, as part of a family-based arrangement.
Family-based arrangements are simply child maintenance arrangements that parents agree privately between themselves. Many separated parents find that this is the easiest quickest and most flexible way to arrange child maintenance.
You might also want to consider paying for specific things for your daughter (like clothes or toys) as a way of contributing regularly to her upkeep. You could even agree between you that sharing the care of your daughter could count as child maintenance.
If you're thinking that your ex might not want to be flexible in this way, it might be worth pointing out to her that a family-based arrangement might work in her favour too. For example, if a big household bill comes in, you could help out by paying a lump sum towards that, instead of buying the smaller items.
The Child Maintenance Options service has lots of information about how to make a family-based arrangement work for you. You can also access free tools and guides to help you talk to your ex about child maintenance. This includes a free child maintenance calculator, which gives you an estimate of how much your payments would be through the CSA. You could use this as a starting point for your family-based arrangement.
Whichever way you decide to financially support your daughter, make sure you keep a record of your payments. You can show these to the courts if necessary.
I hope this information helps you. If you'd like to find out more, visit cmoptions.org, or call the Options team on 0800 988 0988 for a confidential chat.
Welcome to the DAD.info forum.
We don’t like to set ‘rules’, but to make sure that you and the other dads are kept safe, we have some requests. When engaging with the forum, please be aware of the following:
- The forum is not moderated 24 hours per day.
- Many of the moderators do so on a voluntary basis. Whilst they may be able to provide some guidance, advice or support, they may not be able to deal with specifics.
- We are not an emergency crisis service so if you or someone else is in immediate danger, please call emergency services.
- If you are concerned about the safety of a child, please click here to find the support you can get for them (link to new page)
- If you are in crisis, please call Samaritans on 116 123. They are open 24 hours a day, 7 days per week.
We hope you find this forum a supportive environment and thank you for joining us.