Do you need to register birth before claiming child maintenance?

[Truppp]

Just thinking that would hold things up?

Yes.

Otherwise a lot of fraud would take place surely!

Just thinking it would take much longer that’s all… I thought perhaps the claim could be started in the meantime

It can’t hold anything up if you get the registration done quickly.

😂

Just register the baby. Takes about 15 minutes.

Good luck, child maintenance claims can’t take ages anyway unless your ex is very very cooperative and yes of course you need to register the child 🙄

@AnneLovesGilbert i thought you had to attend an office and get an appointment etc. So realistically wouldn’t be that soon after birth? Xx

12 years ago there was a Registrar visiting maternity ward several days a week in my town

Why the rush? A claim will take weeks even months to sort out anyway!

You have to register the child first and provide the birth certificate before your claim is accepted however they do backdate the payment

Of course. How else would they know of the child's existence?

Yep, it's a 15 minute job. well, 20, if you count the 5 minutes on the phone making the appointment.

Then you can walk out of the registrars office, go home and put your claim for child maintenance in.

When my DD was born, end of July last year, we went online and filled the form in a few days later and a week after she was born we had an appointment and she was registered.
We then went online and did the child benefit form and we got it within a couple of months with the money backdated to her date of birth.
It really doesn't take that long

We could register the birth at the hospital when I had my son but I know that's quite lucky.

Yes you'll need to register first. You won't be getting far without any proof that baby is here.

Depending on where you live, some wait list are very long.

I booked an app about a week after the birth. First appointment to get baby registered was 9 weeks after that.

So you could have to wait to register, the the maintenance claim could be quite a while to get sorted if the NRP stalls things.

That’s my concern @User354354

Do you mean child maintenance or child benefit? Yes for both. But I think child benefit will be backdated to date of birth. Not as straightforward with child maintenance. Put your claim in as soon as you've registered your child.

I'm not sure how long ago some pp registered their babies, but when DD was born last year, there was a 5week wait to register her birth. So make sure you sort out the appointment as soon as you can, OP.

One possible solution could be to make the appointment about a month before you're due. You could just say you've had the baby and now you want to register him. I don't normally suggest lying but it would speed things up.

I wouldn’t. The registrar office has access to a computer system where they can search for births. So when you make an appt they will,ask for your details and may well look you up at that point and see there’s no birth.

Your husband can pop down on the day of the birth of needs be, or if an appointment is needed probably within a couple of days.

A birth has to be registered within 6 weeks anyway so that’s the maximum length of time it can hold up the process.