Is anyone happy with what they get for child maintenance?

[greipfaa]

I have another thread on this and can’t link it. Feeling frustrated and deflated and like the piss is being taken. Ex has huge savings and about to give up a high paying job. So apparently our daughter has nothing from him.

My partner pays £500 pm for a son he has 50/50! My ex pays £350 for two dcs he sees once a week

I just think he prefers his life on his own and being able to do his own thing. Wouldn’t we all sometimes!
to be fair, if I ask him to take them extra he will, but he never approaches to ask to see them more. It breaks my heart that although I think he must love them, he just can’t be bothered with them.

He could be lying and claiming he is no longer working.
However he is working - stated in court he cannot see the children more then 2 nights per fortnight as he has to work, and collects wearing work clothes.
He was offered more contact but declined as he is either working or needing rest! Which is noted in the court order so he cannot say I keep the children from him.
But yes, £7 per week for 4 kiddies 😳...and he works full time. The system stinks

My best friend gets half the mortgage paid with the understanding she can stay in the house until the youngest child is 18 and then the house is to be sold and divided 50/50
They're only 3 and 5 at the moment so 25 years by which stage the mortgage will be paid off!

She is liable for all the bills and any maintenance on the house as she lives there and will get half the house but he put a hefty deposit from his parents on the house she didn't contribute to that.

They are keeping their own pensions
But no maintenance changes hands but the mortgage is currently £1500 a month and my friend is just grateful to be able to stay in the family home and not upskittle her kids

There is one condition that is that in the event she gets a new partner he cannot stay over in "his" house or live there and if they want to live together the house is then sold at that stage same is she remarries or her new partner pays him 50% of the value of the house and buys him out

I can’t believe £180 is half of every single penny your spend on your son? Even utilities

I spend that amount on food alone for my DS.

There is one condition that is that in the event she gets a new partner he cannot stay over in "his" house or live there

is this actually stipulated in the consent order??

So he’s working but claiming benefits?

So… report him to HMRC!!

I get £1490 a month

Come again… your Ex has never seen his DC?

My ex husband at a full time well paid job, we bought a nice 4 bed detached when we decided to have 3 children. We took them on yearly holidays etc. We could afford them when we made the decisions to have them.

I left him for various reasons, that slowly developed and increased over time, and it seems because i had the audacity to actually see my worth he decided his response to that would be to reduce his income to the bare minimum in universal credits and vanish off the face of the earth, not seeing the kids for 8 years and counting.

Not all men start off as bums when you chose to have children, but, go on to then change dramatically, thinking they are punishing their ex partner, but ultimately punish the kids in the process.

Given that's it's CMS who have told me he is claiming benefits and they know he's working, I have to assume it's UC top ups.
Nothing illegal about that....but it's reduced CMS to just £7 per week for 4 children!!!

Yep.

I get fuck all, haven't done in about 4 years. More than happy with it, it removed a layer of conflict and I don't feel beholden to an abusive shit for a couple of hundred quid a month.

This is very baffling.

So he’s working and receiving UC? So presumably on a very low income?!

I get £400 pcm for 2 x DC. They are with me the majority of the time their dad sees them one day a week with very occasional sleepovers. (Maybe 4 or 5 a year)

This is a figure he proposed when we separated, which i have been happy with although that was 5 years ago now, and cost of living plus cost of children has increased a lot

I have to work part time so that I can do school runs etc.

@Bemyclementine does that cover most stuff for them?

I have no idea tbh. Do you mean clubs, clothes, uniforms,shoes etc?

I haven't worked it all out but I'm sure I'd save more than £400 a month if I didn't have them!

It's irrelevant what amount is "fair". The CMS calculation is the calculation.

Also "fair" is very subjective. Someone earning £100k and living in the North East would have a lot more disposable income from which to pay maintenance than someone living in London, for example. So if you're making a private arrangement based on "fairness", it's entirely down to the circumstances of the people involved.

Yes that was precisely my point.

”fair” insofar

as how many nights AND NRP’s salary. The two then spit out what is the child maintenance figure minimum.

then you can agree to adjust according to individual circumstances ie my ex pays £1490 but also pays for a lot of stuff that he could well argue I should pay for from the maintenance

My ex does a lot of cash in hand work so very little goes through his bank account - according to cms he should pay £50 a week for my two - he doesn’t - they’re taking him to court for non payment
while the kids tell me about the ‘piles of pound notes in dads bedroom’

its a terrible system where he can use cash to have a lovely carefree life when I’m paying everything for his kids.

@Heatherjayne1972

but if you are aware he is committing benefit fraud, you should report him

Minimum wage yes - CMS letter used to give his salary.
Reduced his hours also as new partner had a baby, so now he does all school drop off & pick ups, so he works 9-3 ish it seems.

I can't figure it out either, but that's what the CMS letter says.

EXH pays 1500 a month for our 5. He also has them 3 nights a week and we’re both happy with this arrangement.

I don’t know if I would get more or less through the calculator but we’ve never really bothered with that stuff, we’ve always sorted everything between ourselves amicably, even got divorced by sending forms in didn’t even have a solicitor!

It's quite common to have clauses about maintenance reducing when the receiving partner begins to cohabit/marries with someone else (to the Pp asking).
I can see that from both sides. On one hand the kids don't suddenly begin to cost less when their parent gets a new partner-but on the other hand the parents costs are Often Halved with their new partner and it seems unfair that the paying parent continues to subsidise the lifestyle in any way of the (new) family unit to the same degree.

If the NRP has “huge” savings then it’s worth applying for a variation asking them to look at unearned income, such as the interest on savings.

If all absent parents paid the correct maintenance I’m sure many children would be lifted out of the poverty stats.

As much as many people are against a cashless society @Heatherjayne1972 ex is a perfect example of why there are some positives to a cashless society. Harder to skip maintenance plus I assume he isn’t declaring this to HMRC. People complain about business tax issues but the black economy is also robbing the public purse of billions.