CMS and inheritance

[sanityisamyth]

Does anyone know if a £180,000 inheritance would be taken into account by CMS? ExH is retraining from a £35k salary to a £16.5k apprenticeship wage, and pays me £150 a month (calculated by CMS). This doesn't go very far, when I've got £850 a month childcare to pay to even allow me to work.

ExH has already e-mailed nursery to state, very plainly, that he is not to be held liable for any of DS nursery fees, in part or full, despite having £180,000 in the bank. Am seriously struggling financially and pissed off he has to pay so little.

[CL12345]

CMS only takes wages into account when calculating maintenance unfortunately.

Have you check if you're entitled to any kind of help towards childcare fees? ie if your employer as a childcare voucher scheme and your entitlement to child tax credit?

[Gran22]

I'm just appalled that someone would be content to see the person looking after his child struggling to pay for their care. i have no experience of maintenance support, but that stance seems blatantly unfair.

[NarcsBegone]

They can take it into account. Call them and ask for a variation order. My ex has recently decided to stop working and we get nothing now but he will be receiving a large inheritance on top of the one he had recently but has hidden away, soon (it's a complicated situation with the inheritances). The cms have said that they can investigate and calculate a rate based on this money. They are also able to take maintenance from pensions.

[sanityisamyth]

Thanks for the replies. It does seem blatantly unfair to me. He's chosen to retrain - he couldn't keep a permanent contract in his previous career (he didn't put any effort into it) so is retraining which seems sensible but he's chosen to halve his salary, using the £150,000 in his account to live on. I don't see why his son should go short because he's decided to drop his salary.

Interesting about the variation order. I didn't see anything like that on the CMS website - will give them a call tomorrow. I've called them before and been on hold for over an hour in the past so thought I'd check on here before going through that again!

[sanityisamyth]

Thanks Gran. My solicitor said he's a narcissist, based on his behaviour before and during the divorce. He was very controlling during our marriage so it doesn't surprise me if him, but it's not something I would ever do to someone else :( some people are just wired differently :(

[sanityisamyth]

Thanks CL I get some working tax credits. I was previously getting about £80 every 4 weeks but went on the calculator online and it said about £200 every 4 weeks so I updated the details but they're only giving me £23 every 4 weeks. It's worth having but don't know why it's only 10% of what was calculated or less than I got before! Will try again!

[needsahalo]

You will need a variation - phone them. Used to be they would assume interest on over £65k. You might be lucky.

[sanityisamyth]

Thanks needsahalo that's interesting too :) will do!!

[sanityisamyth]

If they can take it into account, can it be backdated? I sound really grabbing but I'm not - I'm just very skint and sick of having an empty fridge!! The inheritance was granted in May/June so he's had 6months of a lot of money in the bank

[CL12345]

Re the £23 instead of £200 in tax credit: CMS take last year wage when calculating tax credit. Have you maybe used this year wage when you did your calculations?
Anyway, if there is a difference of more than £2500 between last year and this year estimate, update your file in consequence and they will also update your tax credit.

[sanityisamyth]

Thanks CL I think I sorted that out last night. They had my wrong income for last year so this year is an adjustment. I asked if the 3 and 4 year funding will make a difference too as my childcare costs will go down so I'll get even less from January! Great!

[CL12345]

Glad to hear that :)

[LemonSqueezy0]

Hi OP did you manage to get through in the end? I thought they could apply a variation for savings etc so hopefully you were successful.