My exes and finances

Get a full time job like everyone else and stop relying on a disabled person to top up your lifestyle choices as a part time employee/ parent.

Thanks man received money for life changing injuries which means he can't work not because he can't be bothered to work as your u implied. Absolutely atrocious behaviour from you, I hope you're never in his situation.

You're a greedy unsympathetic money grabber. Do you work by the way or are just looking for other people to top up your lifestyle choices?

You do school runs and work on average 3 hours a day.

Reported this as not a genuine poster 🤣

You could make an application to court for a schedule 1 children’s act. But it needs to be for specific items, ie a new computer or furniture for room etc.

They re nearly 50/50 and dad pays for art and dance classes. Surely th5e dance and art classes are worth more than what £7 a week. Remember DD doesn’t like change so if they stop paying for the classes the Op will have to

there is always overtime available at Tesco - op just doesn’t want to work more than 16 hours so she still gets benefits

She co parents but she’s still a single mum. Her relationship status determines that.

You are thinking of lone parent. Op isn’t a lone parent because she co parents and her child’s father is in the picture. She’s not a lone parent but she is a single mum.

You sound like a truly awful human being.

OP may not have phrased her post particularly well but she does have a point which is that as the parent who the child spends the majority of time with she would have a maintenance entitlement to assist her with her outgoings if the other parent was working. He has Not been working so that payment stopped. He’s now receiving a lump sum. If there are taxable elements of back pay within that lump sum then OP is entitled to a proportion of it in line with CMS assessment rules. Paying for children is expensive, shame on those of you who are so dismissive of her situation. Op the way you will get this looked at is to go to the child maintenance service and ask them to assess the lump sum for taxable elements.

You also need to understand that you are not owed any “missed maintenance” for the period in which he hasn’t had a job and hasn’t paid it. His maintenance obligation in that period is nil. There is therefore no “missed maintenance”. Get over it and focus on what you can do something about: your own parenting and your own income.

He didn’t through did he, he had a horrible accident at work and is now paralysed on one side of his body and the payout is pretty minimal for his life long disability, which he will still be coming to terms with considering he hasn’t actually received the payout yet. He also has his child almost as much as the mum does.

He hasn’t got an income. Child maintenance is assessed on income. A settlement of an employment claim is not classed as income by the CMS so if you try to get any of it through that route you will fail. It is open to him to give you some, but he’s not obliged to and it sounds as though he isn’t going to.

His wife’s income is irrelevant because she is not your DD’s parent.

The system may seem designed to accommodate parents who don’t want to support their children, but that is what the system is. Some people’s morals result in them paying more than what they are legally obliged to pay; others don’t share those morals. My older kids’ dad stopped paying maintenance for them when he lost his job when they were 13 and 11 and I never received another penny. He still managed to educate his child from second marriage privately (his second wife did not work and had never had any career to speak of).

I’d reconcile yourself to this and let it go, since arguing with him about it will sour relations and your DDs will be affected by that. He’s still their dad. Don’t discuss money with them.

Oh and I tried to let it pass but I just can’t. I think it’s abysmal that you actually believe you are reasonable in saying in your OP that he “has decided not to work” and that you “personally think if he can’t work then he should you looking after my DD”.

Why do you think it’s ok to say that someone who has lost the use of half their body through an accident is choosing not to work and that because they are now disabled they shouldn’t be able to have care of their child.

If you want to understand why people are not being sympathetic to your plight it’s because they have read the things you’ve said and think you are horrible.

Heard it all now can't show her the same love because her dad isn't paying. What the actual heck?!

He has her one night a week less than you...

They didn’t choose for him to be a SAHD. He became severely disabled.

Thankfully the law agrees new partners don’t have to contribute to exes, least of all lazy, 15 hour a week ones.

Jeez the bloke has received compensation for life changing injuries of losing the right side of his body. You are not entitled to that nor his wife’s money

Secondly he is having your daughter just shy of 50:50 by one night. He also has the part where school doesn’t cover chunks of the day. As his not working sounds a fairly permanent arrangement, why don’t you tally actual costs of uniform, clothes, extra curriculars and her other needs then balance up half the cost each on a monthly basis

Wow.

So he is paralysed on one side of his body, clearly a significant accident and you think he is lazy. It sounds like he is lucky to be alive.

He already has you dd for nearly 50% of the week. So indoubt very much whether you are actually oweed anything.

I was a single mum for years. I have always worked full time because funnily enough I have a financial responsibility to provide for my child.

People are not supporting you because you are not coming across well at all. I appreciate that losing that money is difficult. But 15 hours a week working and then claiming you need downtime at a weekend is down right insulting. Your ex is not the lazy one here.

Get a job with more hours, provide for your dd. And gain some humanity and humility. You're not owed an easy life as a sahp.

Of hebhas been awarded that much compensation the it will be deemed that medically he cannot work. That money is to provide for his ongoing medical needs and adaptations he may need to thebhome in order to live. It is not there to supplement your selfish wants.

It would be easy to have a system of self reporting maintenance payments from the UC claimant. This would then recalculate the UC due on a rolling basis. This would rely on benefits claimants being honest. A pipe dream I agree.

Something needs to change. People need to start taking responsibility for financially supporting their children. Both parents. Working 15 hours because they need a rest from parenting a 15 year old and 7 year old is ridiculous and embarrassing.

I am a lone parent OP. Have been for 15 years. No maintenance or contact with ex. I worked full time and my DD16 just did her GCSEs and is now at 6th form college.

I have never had the luxury of time or days off not for 16 years.

It sucks that he can’t or won’t pay maintenance yes but honestly you need to reframe this a bit and start focussing on what you can do instead.

Many of us don’t have a co-parenting situation, we work hard, we save and we bring our kids up.

It’s not his wife’s job to substitute here, your DD has two capable parents.

There's a lot of talk of what you're entitled to, and how much you're down. You realise it isn't your income, yeah? Its for your child?

If he isn't working then he has no income and therefore there isn't any money to give you. What his partner earns is irrelevant as she has no financial responsibility for your child.

@EnglishRain is your or your DC’s fathers income supplemented by UC benefits?

Maybe he isn't working during the week because he needs to "unwind" from looking after his daughter all weekend (which frankly, is harder than school runs and 15hr work a week, even if you ignore the significant new onset disability!)

PS if a trust has been set up for his daughter, he can't easily change it into his wife's name, it's quite a long winded affair. What he's probably done is changed who oversees the release/spending of it, and based on your attitude to money I can see why!

I agree with this in theory but the reason it’s not like that is because it doesn’t work in practice.

I know so many single mums whose exes don’t pay maintenance; or who pay it late; or who deduct money from it because they paid for one jumper; or who refuse to pay because she got her nails done etc etc.

I would love to see CMS have and use the power to really properly enforce maintenance agreements including for parents who are self employed, working illegally, change jobs all the time etc. I’d love it to be free for the collecting parent if they have proof the paying parent wasn’t paying on a private agreement. And I would love the rules to change so that wealth - savings, inheritance, assets etc - are looked at if someone says they can’t pay due to lack of income. And I’d love for cms debts to be considered priority debts with debt collectors etc etc if they’re not paid.

And then I’d be 100 percent supportive of it being counted as income for universal credit.

I think you’re seeing £190k and thinking it’s a huge amount of money but your ex has been significantly disabled and as a result is no lo longer able to work. That money is to compensate for his loss of future earnings as well as the costs he has incurred to date. I’m guessing he’s around 40 years old, so 28 years to retirement at the most basic calculation that’s £6785 a year that this money allows him as an annual income.

He hasn’t had a lucky win, and he hasn’t done a runner and left you to raise your child alone. Despite a significant and debilitating accident he has continued to be an active parent and has her in his care 43% of the time.

It is completely unreasonable for you to expect his new wife to work to pay and subsidise your child.

I’d be speaking to him about his contact days. It’s not fair for you to shoulder the burden of all school pick ups and drop offs and him to get all the fun weekend time. Maybe he should have her Sunday - Weds drop off instead. Should give you chance to work a bit more to make up shortfall if you can’t cope without it too.

I do think people are being unfair saying you aren’t a single mum. I count myself as one. I’ve got a DP, but he has a house and I have a house. He spends a lot of time at mine, but I have to run my house on my income alone. My child’s dad sees her for 5 hours once a week, and it’s me that does probably 80% of everything for her (my mum does the rest). Unless you’ve got someone with you actively sharing the load I don’t think it stops you being a single mum.