Child maintaince with a greedy ex

[EveOnline2016]

My brother has his daughter a lot.

This is how it breaks down. 1/2 the school holidays. EOW plus every Monday Tuesday and Thursday after school. Also 1/2 the cost of school uniform.

EOW is Friday after school till bedtime Sunday.

Still ex wants CMO payments.

While he has his daughter he feeds and clothes her and washes and irons the school uniform to send back.

My brother has now stopped the £100 per week maintence or he can't afford to have his dd.

Is this fair.

How about men accept that when they have children, these types of expenses will be a normal part of their lives

Of course people know that. When people separate and want to continue a relationship with their children, stay involved and provide a home for them - is the CSA calculator the best way of addressing the financial consequences for ALL parents and the DCs?

I'm sure most men realise that children come with costs, but it's the doubling up of costs post-split that takes allot of people by surprise

Supporting one household is hard enough nowadays.

Post split - it's a minefield.

I think really if everyone just figured a way to get past their own wants and focussed entirely on the children things would run a lot more smoothly. I do feel for men that are cut out and still have to pay which doesn't seem the case here anyway but really if you care about your children you're going to want to hand every spare penny over to give everyone the best quality of life as in the end that's what rubs off onto children being raised in the environment you put them in. It doesn't matter what the money gets spent on as long as the children are healthy and mentally happy. Unless extra care is taken, children can take a mentally negative hit later in life hearing that dad/mum didn't want to help out financially or I think even saying I only want to pay the minimum. Pay the minimum if that's all you can afford but I'd give my last penny for my child even if it meant the main carer had a better life as I believe that stable home will raise my children as stable as is possible. You can tell your kids the story later and explain how hard it was later on when they are adults for now give them the best life you can and you'll reap the rewards later on no matter how much silliness goes on initially.

hunnypots bringing the thread back on point.

Pay the minimum if that's all you can afford but I'd give my last penny for my child even if it meant the main carer had a better life as I believe that stable home will raise my children as stable as is possible

I think that's an important point. But then it also clashes with having a place for your child to spend time with you and your chance to be a parent.

In theory it might be fairer to do some sort of more in depth calculation, taking in to account childcare costs, schooling costs, hours spent caring for the child, and so on. But in reality that would be totally unworkable, and probably require a massive arbitration service to deal with disputes:

-Who decided what childcare to use/include in the costs? What if dad insists that their parents, who hate mum, should care for the child all day but mum doesn't want this.
-how do you begin to calculate who is responsible for the child at specific times, e.g. when they're at childcare or school? If parents have each paid 50% of childcare but parent A does drop off, pick up and is the one on call for sickness who gets those "hours"
-can you begin to imagine the arseing around which (mainly men) NRPs would manage. "I was an hour late dropping little Jimmy off, so I'm reducing your maintenance this week", "little Jessica was sick and had to be collected from school early, so I did 3 extra hours and I'm reducing this week's payment to account for it"

It would be an unworkable, unwieldy nightmare. There are times when overnights are unfair but it works in both directions really and number of nights is likely to fluctuate less than other arrangements. Maybe if we had a system that already worked for getting money collected it would be reasonable to try and make it more complex and nuanced but IIRC 30+% of CSA/CMS cases are paying nowt, and it's something close to 50% of absent parents who don't pay anything for their child.

IIRC 30+% of CSA/CMS cases are paying nowt, and it's something close to 50% of absent parents who don't pay anything for their child

True - and also a lot of RPs who rightly say it's not fair when the CSA calculates what they are owed based on the salary and the overnights - and that DOES NOT reflect the reality of the costs involved to the RP.

Whatever calculation method you use, someone will whine it's unfair. There will always be individuals who would be better or worse off under a different method. But as soon as you try to base it on actual costs then you are trying to force people who are split up - often acrimoniously - to come to an agreement on what costs are reasonable. That's never, ever going to work in a huge number of cases.

But I'd give my last penny for my child, even if it meant the main carer had a better life

A noble sentiment, but it does rather prevent the NRP from moving on with his life. All NRPs should pay appropriately, but they're not a meal ticket for their exes.

Unfortunately, the cost of living in this country - and even having an extra room - is expensive. That's if you can find a place to rent - or buy.

I am sure most parents here would want a room for their DC - regardless of situation. Running a 2 bed house as a single person - with DC / not DC is expensive.

Then you've got to think about the effect on your income of having a child and parenting that child. That's complicated enough.

You want your child to be safe, secure, fed and loved. To have their needs met.

My understanding of maintenance being worked out by overnights is that it is the best, simple way to work out which parent has the chance of not being able to earn wages the following day. Because if you have the child overnight then in most cases you'll drop them at school, forgoing the chance to commute into work to start at 8.30. And you're also the one who if the child wakes up unwell will take the day off to care for them and thereby lose wages.

Sure there are a few cases where this is all not the case and the NRP goes and picks the child up and delivers them to school/looks after them when they're ill. But that's rare and there does have to be some simple formula.

"You want your child to be safe, secure, fed and loved. To have their needs met."

If you stop paying maintenance without warning, on a whim, then this is not what you want.

My understanding of maintenance being worked out by overnights is that it is the best, simple way to work out which parent has the chance of not being able to earn wages the following day

True - but that doesn't take into account NRPs who finish work early / part time and do the afternoon school run.

Work / life patterns are complicated.

I don't know if there's a better way.

UnderseaPineapple the award for hitting the nail on the head definitely goes to you!

IT appears your brother does 'shared care' without the actual overnights.

It's the overnights that affect CSA payments.

She should have his DD overnight rather than drop him back to allow the other parent the opportunity to work more hours and earn more - then maintence doesn't become an issue.

I'm totally for CM, I am a LP who ex pays nothing. [anger] but there is a floor in the system somewhere that always assumes the father can run a household whilst losing 33% of his income and not receiving a share of the child related benefits that come in. And it isn't always the dad as fault he's the NRP. Woman commit adultary too. Woman end relationships.

It's such a tough area for discussion and every case is different that the one size fits all maintence service doesn't take into account.

Not that I have the answers other than shared care.

I'm following others lead ego and giving up in replying to you

You seem hell bent on trying to justify a NRPS doing/paying as little as possible. Utterly entrenched and not capable of seeing what everyone else does or it appears putting the needs of the child first.

Fortunately the system as broken as it is is there to try and protect the rights of children against the selfishness of some NRPs.

You are the resentful partner of an NRP who would love nothing more than the NRP to forget that he had children before you were ever on the scene

I am sure petals has no issue with her partner paying maintenance. I just think her comment is part of the debate about how separated couples can support their DCs appropriately when they separate. It's a complicated debate with lots of factors.

That was a nasty comment to make.

You seem hell bent on trying to justify a NRPS doing/paying as little as possible

No. I have asked what is reasonable to expect when an NRP is providing a room for their DC, is having them 2 x a week, EOW and half the holidays.

IT appears your brother does 'shared care' without the actual overnights

This. It's not quite 50/50 - but it's significant - without the actual overnights.

underseapineapple it's a shame you throw insults, rather than joining in the debate.

So if my calculations are right, this father has almost 30,000 pounds a year left over after paying maintenance, doesn't sound that broke, actually.

The op has gone. The op is not the parent. So I dont see how this is a valid discussion. I would suggest people save themselves heartache by not giving this thread any more oxygen. I will now hide it because it's making me pretty angry. It's the worst kind of trolling.

You could turn it round:

The ex expects the Dad to do 2 school pick ups out of 5.
The ex wants every other weekend.
She wants him to have her DD half the holidays.
They both pay for clothes.
They both pay for school costs.
She also expects £400 a month.

The NRP says he can't afford to do all that.

He SHOULD NOT have cut the money to zero.

But if you were the NRP, what would you do?

Atenco, it's hard to make calculations based in such little info. All we can do is speculate, which isn't helpful.