Paying for childcare

[Coulditbeme]

Ex has taken me to court and got 50/50 shared care of our 3 year old.
Child currently in full time childcare which I currently pay for and claim back costs via UC.
He pays me maintenance but this will now stop due to the new 50/50 arrangement.
I work part time and he works full time so on the weeks I have the child I will only need part time childcare whereas on the weeks he has the child he will still need full time childcare.
What happens now?
UC won’t let me claim full time childcare costs if I only work part time so aibu to think he should be paying for the childcare on his weeks?

Is he not entitled to anything, despite 50% care? Here in Australia is split via the care percentages you have. Is he able to claim? Does he provide any child support? Will he have to when your income decreases?

He has been paying maintenance so far but now we have this 50/50 order that will stop.
No maintenance needs to be paid in these set ups.

I didn’t realise that. I thought it was also based at least partially on ensuring the child has a similar standard of living in both houses with disparate incomes. Shows juts how ignorant to the whole thing I am.

It depends if your income is very similar. If he earns a lot more he’ll still have to pay maintenance (which is wrong imho) according to the CMS calculations

Why do you think it’s wrong? I would have thought that ensuring a child has a comparable standard of living regardless of where they are should be lauded? Women most often have the reduced earning potential or opportunity post children, and men end up with a higher wage. Surely it’s fair to ensure the child doesn’t have to suffer because of an either implicit or verbal argument that the woman (most often) does deal with the children more to the detriment of career?

Because when 50:50 care is applied then I think seeing as their costs are split then no maintenance should be paid.
My SC’s are considering 50:50 - currently all sick days are alternated between my DP/me and their DM/SD, literally everything would be equal once the 50:50 begins yet we will still have to pay £150 a month to the other household who have a much higher income than ourselves, simply because his ExW decided to stay in their home and therefore have kept them registered at the same doctors / dentist and they are linked to mothers address.
It’s madness! They have almost £2Kpcm extra income than us, yet even when everything is split equally we still have to pay her.

Can anyone tell me, give me a link to somewhere that has the answer to this - do I need to be the receiver of the child benefit in order to claim the child element of universal credit?
I can’t find anything!
He is saying that he can claim CB without it affecting UC.

Do not give up CB, CB is the gateway to everything else

DO NOT GIVE UP CHILD BENEFIT - you give up that you loose control over funded hours, Tax Credits everything as you have to be claiming CB to access these. I do not know about UC but as it is a benefit I would expect them to go together.

Also Child Benefit is claimed by the Primary Parent and is recognised as such by the system - do not give up that unintentionally.

This sounds truly awful for more reasons than the financial ones - I feel for you, OP.

Hope some other posters can give you good advice.

Thanks. My thoughts exactly - but I can’t find anything online to back this up!
Where does it say?

ok, I've done a quick search of my usual sources of info and I cannot find anywhere that he is correct about separating UC and CB. My gut feeling is that he is wrong - and worse he knows it and is trying to catch you out.

All the rules say that you can claim for a child who 'usually lives with you' Therefore the benefits agency will decide (if you cannot) who they will count as this person. This then applies to all benefits.

I think you would be best advised to book an appointment with an advice centre or CAB who deals with benefits as this is quite a niche case so I suspect you wont find the answers.

In the meantime I would apply for the 30hours funding on the childcare website and get that inplace. Speak to nursery to establish what hours you will need for the next academic year and how much of that can be got from the 30 hours. You could then either stick the other hours in when you think will be convenient - or leave it to him to arrange. The former might be safer. But you can do this - and you can do it now do not wait until Sept it is too late - or until he decides to do it for you and stuffs up your arrangements. Follow the website put in your new hours from September and it will confirm your entitlement.

Thanks littleowl. I will book an appointment at CAB.
I just know he’s going to mess everything up for me with a rival claim and then god knows how they decide.

Another way of looking at this as I can see you are finding it difficult and wanting to be 'fair' - despite your Ex showing he is not.

Apply for the 30hours childcare - book those with Nursery to suit you taking into account Ex's working pattern where you can - find out what Nursery charge for a full time place taking that into account. Tkae the lead on this - let Nursery know you are the lead parent.

Look at what Universal credit will cover - from reading If you meet the qualifying rules, then you may be able to get up to 85% of your childcare costs. The maximum you can claim is 85% of £760.42 per month for one child (£646.35) so as long as your nursery bill is less than £760 then they will cover 85% leaving a maximum of £114 to find.

Provded that UC dont reduce their payment (- and there is arguments that they shouldn't for reasons of nursery session etc - but I can also see that they will stop a claim if you are only working part time as really they are enabling him to work not you - and presumably he would not qualify.) Then you could continue to pay this to nursery - leaving him the shortfall.

If they will not pay then it is clearly his responsbility to pay any top up he requires after the 30 hours. He cannot use 60 hours in 1 week leaving you none for your weeks the 30 hours have to be spread per week. the only exception would be the 'spread' to 52 weeks from term time only but they still have to be even - which you will need to look at depending on your work/nursery sessions.

My feeling is whatever you do you need to do something before he takes control.

The only thing I'm getting from this situation is your X isn't looking at your child's best interests (i.e. refusing the child to be with mum in the afternoons) and it's now going to cost him money which he likes even less, so is now determined to fight you for it.

What did you find attractive in him?

This is why you need to steam ahead with nursery contract for mornings only in your name, funding for 30 hours - carry on with you as primary carer - so this is the status quo.

Go grey on ex. Let him stress and worry about full time care for DS on his weeks. You have the evidence you tried to work with him (hope it was all in writing?)

She won't get funding for the 30 hours as she'll be working part time

GreenTulips she will... you have to be working 16 hours and earning less than £100K to qualify.
I only work 17.5 hours and get the full 30 hours free funding

I don’t know what I found attractive.
I wish I’d never met him.
It doesn’t have to be like this.
He’s making life so unpleasant and I feel quite ill because of him now.

On the upside I am now with a wonderful lovely man who has been / is my rock through all this.
Unfortunately I think that I won’t be entitled to the 30 hours because he only works 12 hours a week and as I understand it we would both have to work above 16 hours for me to qualify for the funding - even though he is not the child’s dad, it goes off the household doesn’t it?

Can you partner get any other job to up his hours - shift at a pub, literally anything?

Yes we are trying. He’s always up for extra hours. Some weeks he gets offered extra and does them but the contract is only for 12.

Doesnt matter what contract says it matters what his payslip says. He needs to average £125.28 a week. (Assuming he lives with you full time). Its 16hrs at minimum wage - but less hours at more than minimum wage. Look at his past couple of months if he covers that then get your claim in! You can put in a change in circs nearer the time if need be.

He will need to claim CB to get 30hrs. Only one parent can claim for a child. Unless you have heard it direct from the benefits agencies do not believe all this splitting claims you will end up disappointed- of that I am convinced!

Thanks LittleOwl.
Unfortunately he has only been working the contracted 12 hours over recent months 😩
They said he will be able to pick some more hours up in the summer holidays but that doesn’t help us right now does it??
I want to get that application in today but I know it will not be accepted! 😢

Basically as far as benefits are concerned it will always go to the person who has the child benefit as that's the indicator of the primary carer. You need to work out what's more beneficial for example you receiving UC and paying for all the childcare may actually be more financially beneficial than you losing the child part of your UC claim. Forget about his weeks and your weeks to do these calculations first to see what makes more financial sense.

Today I said to him that if I pick up from childcare at lunchtime on both our weeks then he’s no need to apply for 30 hours anyway.
I can get 15 hours and I said I will pay any remainder / extras.
I also said leave the CB in my name and I will give him half of it.
Making me ill all this and I just want to find an agreement.
He hasn’t a clue how complicated, time consuming and damn frustrating filling all the forms in, dealing with “advisors” who haven’t a clue and the cock ups and delays in payment can be for straightforward claims never mind the likes of ours.
It would be so much simpler to do what I suggested.
However, he seemed to think it was a joke and said he might as well talk to a plank of wood ☹️