Ex disputing CMS and making rival Child Benefit claim in 50/50 care

That is not a factor that Child benefit when taking entitlement into account.

You are mad if you use something as unreliable as chatGBT as a guide on something as important as this.

Sorry but I don't feel he should give you anything if its 50/50, you are taking the mick so Im not surprised hes fighting it and you have a good wage yourself! I have my 2 kids 95% of the time and get £300 a month from my ex.

I am divorced. My ex-husband earns at least double what I do, probably more. I have them 90% of the time. I’ve worked out what the kids cost me on a basic level and he gives me £340 a month for them. If I went through CMS I would be awarded at least double that, however I don’t want him subsidising my lifestyle, it’s his money, not mine. Yes he can afford to take them on lavish holidays … isn’t that lovely for them? I also take them on holiday to less expensive places and we also have a lovely time, paid for by me. We have a great co-parenting relationship and he will pay for trainers and things without me asking which is always really appreciated but not expected. We aren’t together any more; it’s not my money.

That’s exactly what the lady on the other thread believed. She was wrong.

Ask a solicitor instead. AI is not infallible

You would hope @fixatedplanet will listen to you as you’ve been there

and in all her replies she feels she should have more money for her

when an ex is happily paying half of all costs then be grateful

he then offers to pay all so no cost to op apart from what she wants or needs an still not good enough

This isn't about @ProlongedAffair though. We've settled that issue- she will never take accountability or accept that she was wrong, which is really sad for her and her children, but no amount of explanation can get through to her.

What's completely baffling is that along comes another one with the exact same story, being told what the outcome will definitely be from someone who has seen it through to the bitter end, and STILL not accepting it.

There's something almost impressive about holding firm to what you WANT to be true in the face of all evidence showing you it is NOT true.

Your delusion really knows no bounds does it…..?!!!

You’ve alienated your own children due to your greed and bitterness.

Oh wow there is actually two of them!! The entitlement!!

On the money you are both earning why are either of you claiming child allowance?

I do not know the legal standing, but from my own POV I would say if its 50/50 he doesnt need to pay any maintenance, regardless of what he earns. I know you don't mean to do this, but in effect you are trying to get spousal payments and rebalance yours and his finances via child maintenance. As you are not in a relationship, his earnings are not yours. Yes it hurts that he can afford more for the kids than you can, but that isn't remedied through maintenance, especially as you earn a decent wage.

He paid plenty. And you didn’t do more of the care. He did all that stuff during his time with them, which was 50/50. You said that yourself in your thread. Then you changed your story, and lied to CMS that you did it all. He challenged and won.

We all read your thread. We say the changes you made to your story as things didn’t go your way.

You deserved to lose. You had plenty of money from him. He was also paying you loads despite it being 50/50 because he was happy to help extra. You fucked it with your greed, your nonsense, the lies, your refusal to take advice. And now you’ve lost your kids because they saw how you were behaving.

At some point you need to take responsibility for your behaviour and stop blaming CMS for making decisions based on the lies you told them.

Given you said he paid 1k a month before he went 50/50 you’ll find very few have sympathy as that’s a huge amount.

You may have been given bad advice, but you chose to ignore every piece of advice to the contrary. You were linked to the information that 50/50 is handled differently. You were repeatedly told that your take was wrong by people who worked for CMS, who had been through the process themselves and the only people you replied to or listened to were ones who agreed with you.

You allowed your greed about his payrise to blind you and ignored all sensible advice. And you still take zero responsibility for it

What he paid during all those years didn’t amount to half the cost of bringing up the children and the sacrifices I made to my career.

I do not want to make this posters thread about me. The CMS gave me innacurrate and false information, they repeatedly told me on numerous phone calls from numerous advisors that I was in fact the primary carer. THEY told me it wasn’t just due to child benefit, but due to the fact I had the children’s registrations for the dentist and doctors and did the majority of admin. THEY told me it wasn’t just based on 50/50 overnights but who provided more day to day care, which I still maintain I did! I managed most of the facets of their lives! I did all the admin for school trips, dentist appointments, made sure they needed to be where they needed to be. The mental load so to speak that so many women complain about being unequal (except when it comes to my thread it seems). The CMS should NEVER have given me such misleading information, THEY should have been transparent that actually, it is largely based on overnights, in which case they should have disallowed my claim in the first instance NOT lead me to believe it was based on who did more care that was deemed primary carer!

I can see the OP’s solicitor will do well out of this, especially when they tell you that you can win this. Then they lose, but you still have to pay.

The most important thing the ex and I did was maintain a decent relationship. DS grew up in a well balanced life.

Curiosity has got the better of me. Has he met a new woman?

You already got paid during the years of all the extras. He paid maintenance that was suitable at the time. When the situation changed, the maintenance changed. You weren’t owed anything.
If you ever want your kids back to you need to get that through your head and change your attitude. He doesn’t owe you anything for the past - he already paid for that at the time.

incredibly greedy

CMS says clearly in black and white on their website, if care is shared equally, no maintenance is payable.

It is not CMS that decides if care is equal, it's the child benefit service. If care is 50:50, CB will easily get proof of that and split the CB, and CMS will follow their lead.

You will get nothing.

We all told @ProlongedAffair this. She didn't believe us and was horrified when it started playing out exactly as we said. Losing both kids was just the icing on the cake after she lost the child benefit, the child maintenance and was ordered to repay what she owed.

If you really want to throw money away then carry on as you are.

I’m glad that you see this now and actually think it’s great to see you trying to help someone else. I know you have been through a lot, I think it can be a good lesson about not letting anger and resentment cloud your judgment. There is the saying ‘pick your battles’ the purpose of this is because if you don’t win, you could lose out terribly. So always choose what you will fight, and why, and consider all the possible outcomes very wisely. Try to detach all the emotions from the desire to pursue this and look at it objectively (like all of the responders to your post are) and don’t rush in.

The other poster had opportunities to stop pursuing this and chose not to, don’t miss out on those for yourself

Why would CMS be unlikely to award maintenance against you?

Once he has CB then they’ll have no choice as he will be, for maintenance purposes, the resident parent of that child.

If he goes back to court (which it sounds like he should) and has the no maintenance agreement reinstated CMS also have to respect the court order. It would be valid for one year and one day before you could apply to CMS again

The very best outcome you can hope for, if you are another who is going to ignore all sensible advice, is that he will have to pay you maintenance for one child and you’ll have to pay him for one.

Keep in mind though that is all he will legally be obliged to pay. So all the things you currently share costs for he’ll be able to say no to contributing to.

@fixatedplanet

You posted on AIBU, therefore you must have doubts about whether this is reasonable.

You've got a poster who went down the same route and now has lost her kids and money. You've had dozens of responses saying how much of a mistake this is and explaining it in detail.

At minimum it will damage your co-parenting relationship, this in turn with harm your children.

Please reconsider.

Its not even £600 though, the £800 will be halved, and then youll have to pay him £180 ish. So your ruining so much for an extra 2 grand a year? On top of losing the child benefit

Do you really think thats gonna stretch to give your children a better lifestyle more than what he does now?

How does the £400 balance out if he never splits a shared cost again? Still quids in.

Without adding in the loss of any goodwill or nice co parenting.

I mean it’s not like your poor living on minimum wage desperately trying to pay rent while he lords its up. You’re on 60k and got 70% of assets plus 50% of pension. You should be sitting pretty pretty.

CMS is to ensure the children are catered for. It isn't to even up your incomes. He is a high earner, but you also earn a decent wage and were given a greater share of the assets in the divorce (which presumably set you up eg for housing them) There is no guarantee at all that he would be due to pay you a higher level of CMS if you have the children 50 50 and claim CB for one each.