To say I understand why some people don’t pay child maintenance? X

[princessmum1]

Just that really. It seems crazy that child maintenance is not means tested beyond anything other than income. It doesn’t matter if your mortgage/rent or your ex partners is £2000 a month or £300 a month you’ll b expected to pay the same amount. Seems odd when you compare it to benefits that are very much means tested based on everything.

It doesn't matter what the ex wife does with her money. This is about a parent and their child. You have one, you pay for them. What is so hard to understand about that? Sick of these threads and I'm not even in that situation. Same as the new gf threads moaning they can't afford a child of their own due to maintenance. If you meet someone with a child already that child is just as important as any future children.

Child maintenance should be treated by those who are paying it (or who are meant to pay it) as important as more important than paying their rent or mortgage. Simply put, when looking for somewhere new to rent for example, they need to make sure that they will still pay their most important outgoing (child support). If they can’t afford it anymore they can’t afford to rent that place/the mortgage on it.

I will personally never understand how a person can not pay their child support in full and on time. No excuses.

Your bills aren't means tested either. You have to pay your gas bill whatever your income. And if the resident parent doesn't provide the child with necessities they can be charged with neglect!

OP can you really not see the problem with your theory? You would get cf nrp moving into places with higher rent/mortgage just to lower their maintenance payments. What about flipping the coin and looking at when the nrp moves in with a woman who has 3 kids from her first husband, mortgage paid off, earns a good wage, and her wage is not taken into consideration but her 3 kids are, when working out how much nrp has to pay in maintenance? not bitter, honest

I understand completely, and think everybody should pay for their kids.

What some people find hard to swallow is when Parent A (with kids) gets into a new relationship, with a dual income and all the trimmings, and Parent B is left living in a bed-sit contributing towards the comfortable lifestyle of Parent A, their new Partner and multiple Children ....

Segregation of where the money is actually going is a lot more complicated than people are making out.

In my view, the most despicable action is for nrp to became a Sahp for his new family thereby avoiding any child maintenance liability at all.

How does a new partner justify that?

Awwwww...is the 'friend' your new partner by any chance, princessmum?

In the circumstances you state OP:
Your 'friend' rents a home, has lodger income and a job.
The ex has no home of her own and is dependent on family for support, is bettering herself by education (which isn't free by the way), gets UC (which is means tested) to support the children. You believe that she has £400 pcm left at the end of each month. This cannot be true unless she is living on the kindness of her family to support her totally. The fact that her family may be willing to do this does not offset the father's responsibility for his children. They are his children.

Haloumi: the willingness or not of a new partner or the Rp's family to help out does not mean that the NRP ceases to be a parent to their own children. Being a parent means putting them first.

Because the children should benefit as much as possible. If mum gets a wealthy new partner- great. More for the kids. NRP doesn't reduce payments to offset this benefit.

Maintenance IS NOT a Benefit. IT is a non residents parents contribution to the raising of a child and most contributions do not cover even half the cost of raising a child.

Also if you get in a relationship with a person with kids you must accept that part of that relationship includes paying for those children whether they live with you or not.

I don't understand this MN double standards.

1. mum on mn: my ex Dh lied about SE income and now I get mimimal maintainence.

2)My new boyfriend has no money. But ex wife is living life of Riley.

"Stupid you for choosing a boyfriend with kids. "

Is that the same advice you give to women? Who are on mn, wanting to date, when ex-Dh ran off with OW?

No. Thought not. Or else anyone with kids would never love again.

Wierd mn. And it's double standards.

To the person who complained that they could look after their child for less than the £300 month maintenance they pay.

I suspect strongly you have not a clue about how much raising a kid costs. £75 a week is not to just to pay for food and basic clothes. It is also to pay towards the cost of a house that has an extra bedroom plus bills, childcare costs, uniform and school trips, days out, clubs, etc.

But @Oblomov18 the new wife is usually NOT living the life of Riley

She may be providing a decent quality of life for her kids but that doesn't mean she's living it up burning his money

But the new girlfriend is always told to look 👀 how she spends MY money to vilify the mother

I was smoking... incredibly stressed, depressed and I resorted to smoking. To afford this I wasn't buying myself any new clothes, haven't cut my hair, haven't done lots of other things

My abusive ex uses the fact that I was smoking to tell his new partner how I live it up on his money....

Except I don't, it's a disgusting habit and addiction but it certainly isn't being paid for from his maintenance money

What some people find hard to swallow is when Parent A (with kids) gets into a new relationship, with a dual income and all the trimmings, and Parent B is left living in a bed-sit contributing towards the comfortable lifestyle of Parent A, their new Partner and multiple Children ....

They aren't. They contributing towards THEIR child. As any decent parent would.

But halloumi they're not contributing to their ex's "lifestyle" (which claim is the cry of deadbeats everywhere btw) they're contributing to THEIR child's LIFE which they have a moral and legal obligation to do so.

Oblomov but it's not "don't get together with someone with DC" it's "if you get together with someone with DC you have to allow for that relationship practically, emotionally and financially."

Women in both scenarios are advised not to have more siblings to the original children if they can't afford it. So not double standards at all actually.

Abucat - exactly - it's indirect as well as direct costs, it's irregular as well as regular/frequent costs.

Speechless 🤦🏻‍♀️

I don't understand this MN double standards

I don't understand why people think different responses on different threads equate to double standards. Unless you can identify the same poster contradicting themselves on two similar threads, then I don't know why it's assumed that all posters in MN share one identical opinion.

I get the point that you're trying to make OP In the case of your friend. The NRP has cut down his own expenses to be able to pay the maintenance that he should. But the residential parent is living the high life with regards to money and finances.
This is unfortunate however in most cases the non-residential parent would be able to screw the system in order to pay less maintenance and keep a high income for themselves whilst the residential parent suffers on a low income and bearing the brunt of the childcare
Whilst it doesn't seem fair in the case of your friend I would imagine it very rarely falls this way.

What some people find hard to swallow is when Parent A (with kids) gets into a new relationship, with a dual income and all the trimmings, and Parent B is left living in a bed-sit contributing towards the comfortable lifestyle of Parent A, their new Partner and multiple Children ....

The DWP wrote off £2 BILLION in CSA arrears.

Should the new partner pay for the child? Any self respecting parent would pay 12% of their gross salary for their child. If 12% of the NRP wages makes life comfortable then 88% must make life very comfortable.

I suspect that the number of RP with a new partner is less than the number of NRP with a new partner as it's easier to date when you're a NRP.

I think child maintenance should be calculated as 50% of actual cost of bringing up the child (agreed through the court or the mediation if parents can't agree what's reasonable).
It costed me around £3K / month in childcare to return to work after the maternity leave. CSA calculated official child maintenance wasn't even 10% of that alone.

And OP in the example you gave, the mother would not get that amount of universal credit unless there is a large amount of kids. Plus if the mother is really paying nothing, then her parents are effectively giving her money. That is their choice and nothing to do with you.

OP, your friend would be supporting his own child financially if he and the child's mother had stayed together, wouldn't he? Does that change if the parents split up? He's supporting his child, helping to feed, clothe and protect the life he had a 50% role in creating.

Is he trying to control how his ex spends the money that he's legally obliged to give to help raise his own child?

I would love to see a system in Ireland and the UK like in some of the state's.
I really think its the most unattractive trait in a man or a woman who doesn't give a shit about their kids and refuses to contribute a decent maintenance amount and also actual time to their children.