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my daughter lives 200 miles away and she comes to visit 3 times a year. all other visits involve me going to where she lives and staying in a hotel in order i get to see her.
She is due to spend a week in the summer and my Ex has now said I have to collect my daughter and return her at the end of the week. This will involve me making 2 400 mile round trips, when we originally agreed when she moved away that we would do 1 trip each or meet half way both times.
My ex makes no effort for me to be able to see my daughter and I make all the running to keep in contact with my daughter. I speak to her every night in order to maintain some type of relationship. My ex knows that I will do anythoing to see my daughter and she is holding this over me by saying that I can't see her unless I make both trips in the summer
Am I being reasonable to ask my ex to either bring my daughter to me or collect her at the end of her stays with me? if she refuses what are my rigts in being able to maintain visiting rights to my daughter.
Hi,
I can understand your frustration. Has your ex told you why she isn't willing to make the trips half way as agreed? I'm not sure there is anything legal you can do in this situation to make her do half the trips or meet you in the middle unless you have a legal agreement.
I don't think you're being unreasonable at all, especially if your ex is going back on an agreement. However if your ex is unwilling to make the journey, there isn't a great deal you can do. I believe that the courts find it difficult to enforce.
Maybe, as Springchicken suggests, asking your ex to meet you half way is a possible compromise?
I believe that the cost of your additional travel can be deducted from your maintanence payment. I'm unsure whether accommodation can be included as a legitimate associated expense, but perhaps we can get one of our maintenence experts to drop by and offer some advice?
Hi There,
I have aske the child maintenance team to drop by and see if they can advise a little more.
Darren
Hi
We could use a little more information here, so I'll make assumptions that you don't have a contact order and that you are paying either through the CSA or according to their calculator, and that if you are paying through the CSA, then it's since 2003. If any of those are incorrect assumptions, then please let us know. I also make the assumption that your ex isn't willing to pay for any of your expenses and wants as much maintenance as possible, and if that's there case, a family based arrangement is going to be of little benefit to you.
As referred to above, if any reasonable expenses are involved in seeing your daughter, then anything above £15 per week can be deducted from your takehome pay to give the figure on which 15% is then taken as the maintenance figure - this isn't a massive reduction in maintenance as it effectively means your ex pays 15% of your expenses over the £15 and if your are only seeing her once a month, then you have to pay the first £60ish.
What I would question though, is how long the arrangement was going on before your ex changed it -if it was for a while, then perhaps it might be worth considering a contact order to revert to the arrangement as it was, and to maintain your existing level of contact. The courts don't often insist on the parent with care travelling, but if that arrangement was already in place then I could see that they would give a lot of consideration to reinstating it. As ever, it's worth considering mediation to see if a mediated solution can be found, but I'd have a read of yoji's guide to representing yourself at the top of the legal section - for the court fee of around £200 (may be a bit more now) I don't think you have much to lose by at least considering this option, and if your ex knows you are willing to go down this route, she may be more amenable to a compromise. The only problem would be that the hearing would be in the court nearest to your ex (she could get it transferred there even if you start it in your local court) so you'd have to travel for this.
However
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