To ask who pays for childcare if you are separated

What an absolute prize this bloke is. I’m so sorry you’re dealing with this crap. Why can’t men just do the right thing by their children and why do many women stand by CMS figures? Any system that lets a man get away with £150 a month to raise a child is an absolute joke.

Reading all these comments admonishing the fathers is ridiculous.

My ex partner chose to take my daughter away from me, she made false allegations of DV, when it was her that was violently attacking me all the time.

She then proceeded to hack my emails and google accounts, all this after years living in fear of her due to the controlling and coersive behaviour.

She chose to have me arrested under false allegations and then take our 5 month old daughter away from her home, a place of safety to only end up in a womens refuge with god knows how many other people.

Now shes decided to apply for a NMO to strengthen her case for 100% child custody and full legal aid.

And to top it off, shes applied to CMS who say I should give 700 a month, when I know it doesnt cost anywhere near that much to support my child. I was paying for everything when we were together and it was a fraction of that.

The CMS are crooks. My gross pay doesnt reflect the level of tax I pay, the NI, student loans or the debts I have to service, debts that she beneifited from whilst we were together.

After that 700 and everything else, what am I left with? I havent even seen my daughter since the day she got me arrested? Shes falsly claimed that I am a danger to my daughter, making allegations that I smoke in front of the baby when I actually quit the day she was born.

I am happy to pay for my child, however I am not paying for the mothers lifestyle.

She chose this and she has to live with the consequences, I am more than happy to take full custody if she cant afford to be a good mum. I know I can be a great dad.

can you switch the UC childcare element from an older child to your youngest who costs more in childcare?

Can you reduce your hours a little further so you earn just under the threshold rather than just over it?

And yes, he can't deduct his petrol from your CMS.

It is a shit situation.

Go to CAB and get them to do a whole overhaul of your entitlements, and explore options, like those above for maximising your income. Also some online calculators you can play about with.

Maybe he dumps £££ into his pension to reduce his assessed earnings?

What hours are you working ? You seem to need a lot of childcare for part time... can u change your days/timing...
you don't have to agree to fri/sat -I certainly wouldn't

Were you married? Is the house solely yours?

AddressLabel - I did that once - he stood in the middle of the road aghast holding the baby - and phoned his mother

Did you call CMS?

He is 100% not allowed to take £30 or even £3 off what they say he should pay you. It may even be backdated, does he pay into your bank?

The money they say MUST go to you for your baby. What you spend it on is up to you.

Call them I think you'll be better off.

There needs to be a campaign for 50/50 split of childcare costs on top of CMS tbh. It’s mostly mothers that get shafted with the full cost so they can work. It’s disgusting.

I often wonder what would happen if the mother refused to take the children back and decided to be the one that paid the CMS and have the child eow to give them a taste of their own medicine.

Fucking hell!

Why is it always women who end up in shit situations when kids are involved? These men have no morals at all. Don't they care about the children they create?

I get you're in a tough situation. If you're after suggestions we might be able to help. I also get it if you just need to vent. You're relationship has fallen apart and now you have 3 children to support. It's not easy.

Unfortunately he doesn't have to pay for childcare....you pay for childcare on your days...

@LGY1 is right regarding the fuel costs.

My ex tried to do that. I told him to go to cmd as he said it costs him 520 per year. Hoped it would reduced cms by £10pm. I knew this was wrong.
Anyway they took the 520pa off his salary.

It reduced it by £4.33pm. In the end.
Thing is he was so nasty about it that I never forgot how horrible he was.
Funny thing was a month later his car was broke so Had to get the train back with ds if normally then go collect ds from station so his dad could jump back on a train.
My answer that time was ' nope, you have a reduction based on bringing him home, the number 5 bus goes from station to my house. See you at 6pm.

Best bit was after 6pm.the service was 2 hourly.. I knew he'd wait for nr 2 hours. I actually took great pleasure in keep spying out the window at him looking pissed off.

That was a bit of karma for the DV and EA he put me through yrs before and for thinking he could take £10 a week away from his son when he knew he could afford it but I was only part time being a lone parent.

Can I ask what is the rule for UC and childcare.. what happens if you don’t need childcare for eldest but have two younger ones ? Can you only ever claim for the eldest two? What if the youngest had s different dad and they were separated.. was the dad s only child.. could he then claim for childcare costs? Is so confusing

Now that they’ve stopped top up benefits for the third child they need to put better laws in place so the other parent can’t shirk their responsibilities

Both parents should be responsible not just one surely.

The rule and changes wouldn’t have been needed if people didn’t keep extending their family whilst already on benefits. It’s not an unfair rule, people not claiming have to limit their families to what they can afford too.

He needs to pay child support in line with the CMS rules but he doesn’t have to pay childcare on top.

Maybe a CM would be cheaper, that’s an expensive after school club.

He is onto something that he can deduct petrol costs, but it’s not the full cost of petrol from the maintenance. He can deduct the cost of the petrol from his earnings.
I.e if he spends £1000 a year on petrol & earns £35k then the calc is based on £34k of earnings.
He can’t take the full £1k off what he pays you.

@Rootd that’s very helpful but what should OP do now in this situation as there isn’t the ability to put the baby back.
Also I would vote for a system that deals with NRP more fairly. They should pay half of what it actually costs to bring up a child not what they can ‘afford’ as the RP has to afford it.

I don't know of any country with a perfect system. Ultimately prosecuting NRPs for nonpayment would cost millions in tax payer money in legal fees. Most people aren't going to be willing to vote for that. Rightly or wrongly it's seen as the individual's responsibility to assess whether or not to have children with someone.

At any rate I thought on UC you only had to work 16 hours? Maybe that's an option to cut down the nursery bill?

The thing is under UC they won’t let you just pack in your job. Even if you can’t afford to work it. You cannot go backwards, you’ll need a better paying job.
And he can deduct petrol money for the pick up, the CMS do include it even if he moved away and in my ex’s case his company pay for the bloody petrol !

Seems totally unfair. Now that they’ve stopped top up benefits for the third child they need to put better laws in place so the other parent can’t shirk their responsibilities.

Are/were you married to your ex? If you’re not yet divorced you could see if you can get court ordered maintenance.