Ex partner handing care of our daughter over to her mother and I'm not happy about it.

@Neil90 I have no experience to share or know enough legally. However you are entirely reasonable on your thinking and are putting your daughter first unlike your ex. I wish you well and hope you get your daughter out of her grand flat. Whether it’s back to 50/50 with mum or you solely. The situation she’s in sounds awful. I think some posters on here have been awful to you as well. I would definitely seek full custody and stop paying the ex anything. Good luck.

@Rosscameasdoody I'm simply not blindly accepting his version of events as the whole truth. Fascinating he's not been back.

Considering how many times you’ve posted here, he probably can’t get a word in edgeways !! Seriously. You are projecting your own experience, which is not the same as the OP. This is not about you.

It doesn’t matter a jot how her housing situation changes. OP is not responsible for paying support to his ex wife. If he didn’t have 50/50 custody he would be paying for their child. As things stand he’s paying £1000 that he has no obligation to, and you’re still criticising and trying to find fault. Once again, you are letting your own personal circumstances project onto a situation that just isn’t the same. You sound very bitter.

The OP states that the mother has been housed by the Council

Really? Where the child doesn't even have a bedroom and is sleeping on the sofa? The child is there almost full time too. You would absolutely not be saying this if the roles were reversed and the OP was the mum.
Come on!

I never said anything about renting.
He has his child 50% of the time.
He voluntarily gives his child's mother £1K per month. He doesn't need to do that, but he does it anyway.
The mother is taking the piss. 💯
And now the child will not be staying in her own mother's house, as she will be in her Grandma's smoke ridden flat, with no bed or bedroom.
He should go for full custody. 💯
Edited to say... i hope it all gets worked out for the daughter.

@Neil90 I imagine if she allows daughter to be with you full time she will lose a load of benefits & I don’t imagine you would continue with the £1000/month. It’s sad that she is denying her daughter a better life. You are giving her loads of extra money, and enough for her to get a mortgage rather than paying all that rent out. You would get a hard time if roles were reversed. Why is she getting benefits, child benefits & also your maintenance? She must be rolling in money. I would apply for 100% time with your daughter.

We don't know that she's privately renting and even if she is it's not his responsibility to pay her rent.

Millions of parents are working full-time with full-time care of one or more children and not getting £1000 a month. They make it work without sending their children to live with grandparents in substandard conditions, and many of them don't have the option of a clean, safe home with another loving, willing parent.

She has one 8 yo 50% of the time and a generous contribution to her living costs. She's not a victim in any way, shape or form.

She wants all the benefits of having a child and none of the responsibility.

@Littlejellyuk I agree with a lot of your post. Except the £1k part being suggested as a lot of money when privately renting. That quite possibly isn't going to pay her rent alone. So I can see why she perhaps needs to work more to cover everything.

Imagine if the roles were reversed:
Man getting £1k per month.
Dumping his child in his mother's house while he works nights, so barely sees her.
Grandma chain smokes and child stinks of ciggies.
Child has no bed or bedroom at Grandma's.
Dad essentially visits child during his 50% custody.

Wow wow wow. This is DISGRACEFUL.
The mother wants her cake and eat it.
She wants money, despite him having the child 50% 🙄
She is taking the absolute piss.
The child is supposed to come first.

If the roles were reversed, everyone would have said get full custody to the mother.
The hypocrisy is astounding!?
This man needs to go to court and get full custody of his little girl.

🙄🙄🙄

When do we EVER get the other POV on here? It is never going to be the 'gotcha' you're aiming at.

yes, because bringing up a Typo, that was covered ages ago, 8 pages in, is SOOOOO funny. Go you.

Oh my word I've nearly wet myself reading this "alligators" 😅🤣😂

@Thursdayschild2025 Absolutely agree with you. If it really is a clear-cut as the OP is making out he would surely take it to court?

Right. I asked him how he knows how many hours his daughter is there, how he knows the flat is dirty, how he knows the grandmother smokes around the child, how he knows the child doesn't have her own bed (gran could be sleeping in the living room). He didn't answer. He might be telling the truth, of course he might, but basically we have the OPs word for all of it - and men do lie thorugh their fucking teeth about women's parenting and behaviour a lot.

But if what he is saying is true, he'd have no problem going to court and revisiting the arrangement. Courts DO NOT favour women, they favour main caregivers who usually are women, and he certainly sounds more than capable of arguing his case in court.

I would dearly love to hear the mum's version of events. Strangely enough the OP hasn't been back?

That's what I have figured also. She was entitled to those benefits when she had her DD 1/2 of the time. Giving "custody" to her Mom means she should lose those benefits. Her Mom is not a suitable "parental figure" with the space problems and the chain-smoking. She should not be cheating the government.

The only one who wants the best for the DD is the father.

And your point? The mother already gets help. If she is not willing to raise her DD, the OP is more than willing. Of course, the "mother" might lose her UC and other benefits if she doesn't have her DD with her. Would serve her right to lose it all because it sounds like she isn't thinking of the big picture or her DD's needs and comfort.

If granny wants her DGD, she can move into a two-bedroom and stop smoking.

P.S. You can stop defending whatever choices you've made. I haven't read all your posts, but it seems you want to become the center of the story, and it's just not about you.

@Lurker85 And she'll more likely qualify for social housing.

Well she won’t need the £1000 a month from you anymore if your daughter is no longer living with her. I’d stop payments to her and let her know why as you are essentially funding her to live a great life away from your daughter. She might change her mind then.

The OP isn't about you. Stop trying to desperately make it about you in your scramble to defend your own choices.

Your kid lives with you, in your home, with two parents who presumably love them and care for them.

Your kid is not being palmed off on a grandparent, in a cramped, cluttered flat where she's forced to live in the living room and sleep on a sofa while living out of a bag stuffed in the corner.

It doesn't really matter to the daughter considering she doesn't even live with her.