Hello,
This is my first post on here, just found this forum by chance an it seems helpful!
I have been paying £180 per month to Mother A for child maintenance through a deduction of earnings order for the past 10 years. Since then, i have been married to Mother B for 6 years and we have 3 amazing kids together. We have now separated reasonably amicably. I pay her £400 per month via bank transfer for our 3 children. Im in the military and i see my 3 kids with Mother B as often as possible. This is 1 full week per month as i work 600 miles away from them at present.
Today i received a letter from the CMS stating that Mother A has applied for maintenance (i presume due to the change from CSA to CMS) and they have worked out i am due to pay £305 per month. This would mean my £400 private arangement with Mother B and CMS £305 to mother A would total £705 pm.
This is obviously horrendous. How can this be recalculated fairly?
Have you used the online calculator to see what you should be paying? Here's a link
www.gov.uk/calculate-yourchild-maintenance
If you have an informal or family based arrangement with mother B they should take this into account when making their calculations.
Definitely use the calculator and make sure you get the right calculation of liability and then speak to the CMS. Your liability will have to be split between the 4 children. Child Maintenance Options have a good helpline too that should be able to help.
To the best of my knowledge, if you do the calculation for 3 children (which is the maximum you pay for under CMS), this should set the total amount you pay under CMS to both mothers. This is then split between the mothers. If I were to guess, this would be apportioned in a ratio of 12/20 between the mothers (assuming you use CMS to calculate both, which I think is advisable), but it's certainly worth checking with CMS on this.