Reduced Child Maintenance

i wonder what the ex’s plan was? You only talk about o/p supporting the child, she has a responsibility to do so as well.

presumably she knew his age when they had the child. She’s likely a lot younger than him if he was nearly 50 when the child was conceived.

if they’d stayed together he’d still be retiring in 2 or 3 years. She’s got another 10 until retirement age. She knew there’d be a point while the child was still a teen when the income would drop.

if the boy is 15 she only has 3 years until he’s 18 and then she gets nothing, what’s the plan then?

has she spent the last 3 years working toward being more financially independent? £750 a month is a decent amount, if she’s retained all the equity in the house she could have her mortgage all but paid off.

both of them should have had a plan. The ex more so as medical retirement is unpredictable, but o/p’s age and the fact she should have been expecting a drop in income in the next couple of years and planned for it, that’s on her.

The idea that any husband/partner would think of this scenario when they are 49 is a bit of a stretch. 49 is not particularly geriatric in terms of a father

the mother is able to and has been able to upskill for years and if she is younger then she has a long time of still earning.

no one can possible condemn a 64 year old who has been signed off

Can you have your son over more? Make it more like a 50/50 arrangement.

What did cms say? Is the 250 what they have calculated?

There was an interesting comment by a woman lawyer who pointed out that there are significant risks with maintenance and that woman who get it need to take into account that the payer can die, remarry etc or in your case fall ill

Instead you ex wife got greedy and never considered what might happen especially given your age

If you’re no longer working, and if your DS isn’t averse, you could have him stay 50/50 with you so you and ex are both sharing the costs and no one has to pay the other.

Whilst you aren’t being unreasonable in principle (you can’t help being unwell), I do have to wonder what your long term plan was. Presumably you didn’t anticipate divorce, and you chose to have a child quite late in in life, knowing that you would need to support and pay for this child well past the expected retirement age of 65. Without knowing what your job was, it’s hard to tell if it would have been reasonable for you to assume you would still be working full time at 70-75 years old (allowing time for your son to go to uni).

At what age will your full pension kick in? Or is this it, in which case, how did you expect to continue on a quarter of your previous salary?

Children are expensive, and whilst you can’t help your change in circumstances, you absolutely should have thought about your retirement plans and contingencies years ago, even at the point your ex wife fell pregnant would have been better than this.

You may have to do what many pensioners have to do when they find their pension isn’t enough - get a job to top up their wage. It’s not unreasonable to request a reduction in how much you are paying, but maybe you could offer to have your son live with you more to allow your ex to reduce all the additional costs of having a teenager at home.

Teens are expensive but you can't help being ill. Better 250 and an alive and well father for ds than working to an early grave. Ds may get a little part time job at 16 for his own fund spends.
Your ex may need to consider what she's going to do when the cms stops altogether. Can ds stay at yours more if he wants to? May help reduce the food bill at mums etc. Have you ran the figures through cms to see if 250 is what they'd suggest?

No YANBU but at 15 I think it would be fair of you to discuss with your son the change in circumstances so if your ex has to make some cut backs he understands the reason why. Teens are v v expensive to run so if you can help with additional costs like tech when required, school trips etc.

You're not unreasonable - you can't pay what you don't have. Hopefully the calculations will demonstrate that fact to her - if she's unreasonable then it sometimes helps to have an impartial third party give an evidence-based verdict.

Not being unreasonable. You're not choosing to stop working or reduce your salary to avoid paying. You're unwell and this day was going to come eventually. You can't work where you were before and need to reduce payments accordingly. It's unfortunate and can't imagine she's thrilled as she also won't have planned for it but that's life. She'll have to cope. You can't pay her what you don't have.

No you aren’t being unreasonable.

you’re income is your income, and if you need to take medical retirement what does she expect you to do?