CMS Payments & Child Benefit - AIBU?

Cms is the legal minimum. When your kids are grown up do you want to tell them you did as little as you legally could or tell them you provide the best you could?

They are your responsibility on your contact days, so travel during this time should be paid by you. Your CMS payment is reduced to account for what you're spending on the kids during this time.

What the kids eat on her days is her business not yours (assuming they are being fed). If she prefers to send a packed lunch, then that is fine. You cannot insist she pays for school lunch and her response of if you want them to have it, you pay seems fair.

The clubs during her time is her responsibility to pay for, if she wants them to go. But she is free to remove them from the clubs if she cannot afford full fees, so it's a judgement call for if you want to risk them missing out. You cannot insist they go but she pay. You should also be paying for anything they do on your days.

Cloths at her house are her responsibility, while cloths they have at yours are yours. Unless you are asking her to send cloths with them, you do not need to pay for new clothes.

However, I'm almost certain that your ex will be paying more then 18% of her income on stuff for the kids. Kids are really expensive. A good parent would pay what they can/ what is needed, not the least they can get away with.

I notice OP says she now works full time. So presumably she's paying for childcare. I bet child maintenance and child benefits do t cover that plus food and bills for the kids even if her house is paid off.

How on earth did she get two properties and you get none? That makes no sense no judge would order that you must have had other assets/money for yourself

Go to court for 50/50 op

you have zero legal obligation to pay more.

I'm actually laughing out loud at the ops way of spinning things. It's bordering on delusion. The omission of any detail in his favour.
It's actually fairly clever - the first post was written in such a woe is me fashion until you actually thought about what he wrote which was that he didn't think he should pay for his children's costs ON HIS DAYS 😂
I'm also interested in the 'I can't work now' statement. I wonder what this would be from her side. My guess is now he actually has to parent his kids for a third of the year, he's had a bit of a shock, having never done it before. Ditto 'she works full time now having never done so before.' Let me guess - she couldn't because you did 0% if the child care per chance?
Just a hunch.

And to the poster who thinks men get a raw deal - the first response of laughter was spot on.

Sounds like bullshit to me. Courts don't award all the assets to one party on divorce. I am resident parent and my ex earns 3 times what I do and he still got awarded assets in our divorce.

So the OP either has more assets than he's letting on or he's done something post divorce to lose his assets.

I have also lost the ability to make money as the result of her having this settlement, with my income now a fraction of what it used to be.

How come? Why isn't your income the same now?

I don't understand how she can have a new 4 bed house and car both fully paid off and your back at home with your parents with nothing?

I don't know how Google arrives at that figure, but I'm guessing it includes things like having a larger house with bedrooms for the children, furniture for those rooms, a larger car, and clothes. If you're a "part time Dad", you still need all those things the exact same as the Mum. You probably also pay for an annual holiday with the children, Christmas and birthday presents equal to what the Mum pays.

He has the children 2 out of 7 nights, so if he pays in full for those nights and any activities they do on those nights, and Mum pays in full for 2 nights, that leaves 3 nights of the week that they are each 50% responsible for.

1.5 nights per week of extra curricular activities, food and bills does not add up to £450 per month.

I'm also pretty sure my 4 yo doesn't cost anything like £900 per month even including everything above.

Maths is obviously not your strong point.

Unless he's missed out lots of detail about what he got in the divorce? Intentionally.

And he doesn't say 'kept' the house. He says 'new house'.

But he hasn’t shared any of the details of what he got in the settlement to balance out the 2 properties and car. Or explained why his income has diminished post-divorce.

It all sounds dreadfully unfair. But that’s intentional here.

I'd be going straight back to court and getting a better settlement if I was in this position.

If she kept the house and car plus has an income from another property there's no way this split is fair.

‘A fraction’ may well mean 41/50 here…

I have also lost the ability to make money as the result of her having this settlement, with my income now a fraction of what it used to be.
how? I could understand this if you had 50/50 care of the children, but you dont…

Basically, weekends (fri to mon) and school hols are split with overnight care. School nights kids are with her overnight.
it sounds like you have the children every other weekend and are complaining about paging bus fare on a friday and lunch on a monday?

You say the divorce impacted your ability to earn, did you sell your business to settle?
I think it's nrp should pay half, however if she earns a lot more than you and has reduced outgoings she might choose for them to do more expensive activities etc than otherwise, I don't think you should be reverted unable to support yourself individually to do that on top of CMS and you covering their costs/care a third of the time.
There are lots of details missing though so it's very difficult to say.
The actual amounts would be useful.
How much do you earn? How much rent do you pay your parents? Why has she got a house and a flat and you have seemingly taken no assets from the marriage were they hers prior?

In your position I’d go to court and try to force 50/50.

I notice you talk about her assets and wages and her share of the settlement.

But you don't discuss the details on your side. Eg no mention of pensions or debts With this very one sided information, no one can make an informed judgement of if the divorce settlement was fair.

That's all a distraction.

When the dc are in your care, you're responsible. If you think they should have hot dinners, pay for them.

You should be paying all their costs for the nights /days that they are with you on top of maintenance. So if they leave from your house to go to school you pay their bus fares and lunches for those days. you also pay for clothing and other items that they need at yours.
It's up to you if you want to contribute to clubs, sports etc that take place on the mother's time, just as its her choice to contribute to any on your time.

You should be paying at least 50% of all costs for your DC.

What she earns/has is irrelevant. If she was a billionaire it would not lessen your financial obligation to your children.

I mean I don’t have children with an ex so no axe to grind here.

That court settlement would seem rather unfair unless there’s a huge drip feed like it was inherited from her family or something or that you also took huge assets also and pissed them up the fall or something 😅

But even so when the children are with you that’s your costs. You can’t force her to pay for hot meals/clubs or bus tickets during your time or her own time. Legally or morally.

This? Sounds very unfair.

How exactly did a court approve such an obviously unfair divorce settlement so that she gets two houses (owned outright and one generating an income) and a car, while you have to move back in to your childhood bedroom (with 3 children 102 nights a year)?

Especially since you claim to be such a low earner that CMS plus activity costs are more than half your income?

My OH has his daughter for 6 nights out of every 14, so very very nearly 50/50. He still has to pay a fairly large amount of maintenance to his ex, which I do think is a tad unfair since we have her 6 nights in a row meaning we need to have as much uniform/clothes, pay just as much in extra bills for her, have a bedroom for her, do almost as many school runs etc etc.

However, I think in your situation you should be paying for the transport and school meals on the days you have the kids. I don't think you should have to pay half for clubs/uniforms because I think that should be covered by the maintenance