Ex trying to claim maintenance

[Doughnut123]

My ex husband is trying to claim maintenance for having 2 of our children to stay for a couple of months while I had building repairs going on. Until this time, he had not had them to stay during the week, due to his long working hours.
My view is that he shouldn’t be claiming maintenance from me,as he was only been doing what should have been done before.
I would appreciate your thoughts.

Please answer the question?
Have you still been receiving maintenance from him during the time the children stayed with him.

Has he just realized that kids are expensive?

Did he continue to pay maintenance and did you continue to claim CB during this time OP?

yabu

My argument is that he has not had the children to stay during the week in the 3 years that we’ve been divorced.

For which he has paid maintenance. It is npw your turn to do the same.

As queried, did he pay you maintenance for those 2 months?

Put it in the calculator and see what it says.

Did he continue to pay maintenance to you through this period? If so he is entitled to that money back. If not then you are all square.

@starzig.

How is that all square? i.e. When she has the children he must pay maintenanc. But when he has the children he has to fund them all by himself.

Well I get what you mean however his maintenance was calculated to cover the actual time you cared for them not to cover time he could have spent with them iyswim.

So he is entitled to maintenance for that period. However maybe if you would like him to care for the children midweek maybe this is a good time to renegotiate a lower maintenance rate for him taking on more hours

Good point Alfie. You are right.

Should he at least keep what he would normally pay you? You won't need it if they're not there.

Will he be paying for everything during this time? Clothes, shoes etc?

Is this the same couple of months he was out of work?

Surely it just reverses for the 2 months.

So you pay him what he would have paid you because your roles were reversed.

I thought maintenance was only cancelled out if you both do 50/50 and since neither of you do (even if you think that's what should be happening)

In principle you are right, but for the sake of peace I would just pay. If you get nasty and he’s still having them around most nights, he can rightly claim to be the resident parent, child maintenance and even tax credits. I know a woman who went through this after allowing her ex to babysit her daughter for 4 nights a week when her shifts changed temporarily. He claimed all the above and it took her almost a year of going back and forth to court to bring things back to where they were.

Sorry.

I’m sorry but I see his point, he pays maintenance too you, did he continue to pay this when they were staying with him? He should t have had to pay maintanance when he had the children living with him so if he did I can see why he’s complaining.

I also see your point but it’s not really viable if he has payed maintanance since he left. If he was looking after them then he would have had to provide their food and anything they needed in that time?

I know a woman who went through this after allowing her ex to babysit her daughter for 4 nights a week when her shifts changed temporarily.

So much here I can't even be bothered to start, but you really have a warped sense.

He did pay the maintenance, but I was also caring for my daughters. One of them was very ill and was in hospital a lot. I was staying with her at the hospital for some of the time, so I was spending money on her whilst she was there and at other times. It’s not clear cut. We shared the care really. I know it might look like I’m being unreasonable, but he has proved himself to be untrustworthy where money is concerned. So although he wasn’t working( he had resigned), he was living off savings and rather than do ‘a job,’ he was very choosy -I’m sure he could have done something, but the highly paid jobs were what he was hanging out for. It was 10 months before he found one. So he obviously didn’t have to worry too much about money.I’m not a money grabber, just want things to be fair.

It is fair OP, you can pay him a meagre % of your net salary, save the money you are not spending on the kids, enjoy your time off a single woman with no responsibilities and let him take care of every eventuality, just as he did to you when you had them most of the time.

(i’m Obviously being sarcastic here, but it is unfortunately the way it works...)

Notsure, that’s it in a nut shell !

I think legally the way it would work is his annual maintenance would be reduced so of the current calculation is based on having them 26 nights a year which is one night every other weekend. The calculation needs to be adjusted to reflect the actual overnights. So 90 nights per year.

He is not now the resident parent. The OP doesn't now have to pay maintenance to him. It would probably be easier to just have him not pay for those two months rather than your payments be reduced for a year but that is between the two of you.