Child Benefit Rival Claim Ex Partner Earning Loads!!!!! part 2

@ProlongedAffair

have you taken him up on his generous offer to sort things amicably between you?

He has them more than 50/50, and was paying the OP several hundred pounds a month in maintenance as well.

The OP wanted a bigger cut of his payrise

@NWL yours is a much more polite version than mine

FAFO!

OP said in previous threads that when she calculated it out not only did it work out her ex had actually more days/overnights than her slightly he paid more of their day to day costs i.e mobile phone bills, private medical insurance etc

@ProlongedAffair are you now planning to come to an agreement with him and drop the CMS case?

Your ex, despite everything you've done to get you here, seems like he still wants to resolve this and be amicable.

The ball is fully in your court now.
You can try to salvage something or you can press on ahead and end up in court and very likely a worse financial position when court rule that no CMS is due and that you need to repay what you have been paid.

All of this could have been avoided if you had listened to the hundreds of people telling you the same thing over and over that just because you held a belief that you did more by having them registered at your GP and filling in a few extra forms doesn't make it so.

I'm still really astonished that you sacrificed what was a good arrangement and a good co-parenting relationship for some extra money, did you not think of the impact of your children in doing this?

Unless he’s a millionaire and they recently divorced, no she can’t go for “spousal maintenance”. It’s not the 1950s.

If she wants more money she gets better employment.

Is your dignity worth this OP?

Does he actually have them 50/50?

One saying comes to mind - play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Sounds like you got greedy and it backfired. Genuinely curious as to why you went down that road. If he now in a serious relationship with someone else? Did something else happen?

It baffles me that you decided to do something so stupid just because you’re still bitter about being the primary parent a few years ago.

They said because I claimed the child benefit and because the children are registered with my GP, Dentist and I do more paperwork I am the resident parent and entitled to CMS. They seem to have now backtracked on that.

Claiming the child benefit is the only thing they needed to award you maintenance.

They expect people to be honest about their situation and you weren't.

They haven't backtracked - they've rectified now they are fully aware of the actual situation.

It’s my understanding that joint 50/50 means no CMS liability from either and child benefit to be split . It would be interesting as to how they ascertain the Primary Carer. It doesn’t matter if your ex earns more unfortunately. Couldn’t you go for spousal maintenance?

“CMS has repeatedly told me I am primary carer too, it’s not just me being indignant as someone else said.“

They also told our sons birth mother that, a woman who hasn’t seen him since he was 18 months, a woman who isn’t legally his parent and a woman who spent time inside due to crimes she chose to commit against him. CMS blindly follow whatever an adult tells them, their decision isn’t based on actual fact or legislation.

My take on this is that you made a poor decision in the first instance that has massively escalated. Your ex now very much has the upper hand but is decent enough to offer you a lifeline whereby you might be able to retrieve the situation to some extent. You should definitely take it. Court is very unlikely to go in your favour. You’ve taken all the flack on MN and been honest about the outcome, a bit of humble pie with your ex shouldn’t be too hard.

When did they say that? YOU said that, and everyone told you they wouldn't care about any of that, especially the paperwork.

CMS assumed you were the primary carer because that's what you told them. Now that better evidence has come along that assumption will likely change to reflect reality rather than a fiction based on your "but I fill in more forms!!" nonsense. Which, notably, you were already being compensated for via his voluntary payments but apparently that wasn't enough for you. Must have been some REALLY big forms.

In summary, you're going to end up no better off and quite possibly worse off. And you've destroyed an amicable co-parenting relationship in doing so. What an entirely predicted outcome.

I admire your transparency. I hope you are able to come to the decision that the court process isn't going to be helpful and you negotiate with your ex.

@ProlongedAffair

Thanks for the update. You've taken a huge amount of stick and it's pretty gutsy to keep coming back to the thread.

Hope he wins.

"let this serve as a warning to others in a 50/50 situation."

The 50/50 situation isn't the cause of your woes, it's bitterness and greed.

"He has since emailed me saying we can still reach an amicable agreement about finances"

He's a fucking saint.

"In a 50/50, even if you believe you do more and CMS initially deems you primary carer, be very careful. "

Be very careful not to base any claims off vibes or vague beliefs?

.

Maybe it would've been better not being so bloody greedy in the first place

"believe" is probably the key word here. I read the other thread and can see you strongly believed to be the primary carer even if the other posters didn't or your ex or the courts or CMS .

In what way and based on what did the CMS tell you repeatedly you were primary carer? Sounds like with new information they have adjusted it.