CMS ex lying

[bridgetjones83]

Hi, ive been divorced with 2 children for 5 years. My ex has always given me a set amount of money which i believed was based on his earnings.

I asked recently due to a suspected job change if his payments were correct and he told me he is paying £10 more than he should as he did not lower his payments when his baby was born.
from my calculations his payment should have lowered by £40ish not £10 with another child so i know he is lying and making me be grateful for this.

Ive gone on the cms calculator and there is no way what he is saying is correct.

I have calculated backwards and figured out he was paying me based on earning £30,000 with no kids for the past years.

For him to be paying £390 (which he says is correct) with a child living with him he would be earning £33,000 which means before he had his child he should have been paying me £40ish a month more.
This is a substantial amount.

Ive worked out if i went through CMS what would happen but its difficult not knowing how much he earns.
i do know he would be charged 20% on top of payments and myself 4% out of the payments

I dont know how to broach it with him as ive tried to keep things amicable and i know this will cause friction.

For the record he does nothing for the children and takes them for food every 8 weeks or so.

How do i go about broaching this with him.

Are you saying he used to under pay?
But the was no CMS claim at the time?

They wont back date it if you werent going though them

You wouldn’t be charged 4% and him 20% unless he refused to pay.

It would go onto direct pay at first, so CMS would go to the HMRC to see what he earnt, this arrangement would then be made through yourselves and he’d pay directly to you. If he refused, eventually after a while it would go to collect and pay which is where you lose the % you’ve mentioned.

You have to pay £20 to set up a new claim.

For another child it’s about £7 a week deducted

Also CMS wouldn’t make him back pay anything as it was a family based arrangement until the point you involve them

Thanks for replying, i'm assuming he used to underpay but regardless of that i think he is still lying about what he earns and makes up figures to throw at me rather than do a proper calculation.

The recent conversation proves that and now i know he will never tell me the truth and the only way to get the correct amount is through CMS but that will cost him £80 a month and will take from the money for the kids (£18) and would not increase my payments by much anyway.

I hate that he can choose what he pays.

If he was honest i would be extremely happy but i will never know.

Thanks Name, i wouldnt chase the back payment its just annoying he's lied, our arrangement was based on him being honest about his earnings.
Thanks for the advise about the charges. Thats good to know.

My dh pays 390. 00 pm for 3 dc, earning 26,000. That was set by CMS. 390.00 for 2 dc sounds about what they would ask your ex to pay, I'm assuming he has no overnight

You'll never get the back payment so forget about that.

You can of course start doing it through the CMS whenever you like. I know some people have a stress with the service but I have always found them very efficient to deal with. After you pay the initial £20 they sort it all out really quickly. I think mine was under 2 weeks the first time.

They use the data from HMRC so the numbers will be correct if he is in an employed position.

There is no reason they will deduct any percentage unless he refuses to pay, then they will. But this will be explained to him so unless he is an idiot he will just pay the initial amount when they tell him to.

I used to have a private arrangement before using the service. I changed for 2 reasons, my ex dicking about and lying about his earnings every year when he got a payrise. But more importantly I wanted it done officially as I knew I'd want to apply for a mortgage one day.

Mortgage companies will only accept your maintenence as income on affordability if it is either court ordered, or done through the CMS and you need a long log of them paying so it was a no brainer for me.

We are 5 years on now and other than his annual attempt to fiddle it with them by calling them to pretend he has her more nights a week than he does (which will never work unless you have a court order, so the non resident parent CANNOT lie about this) it has been smooth really, I would recommend it for piece of mind.

This app really pisses me off when it deletes all your typed paragraphs

The charges only apply while through CMS. After 6 months of constant payments he can pay direct to your account with no charges. Don't really see what you have to lose 🤷

They wont charge him that unless it goes onto collect and pay if he doesnt pay direct pay. Also it doesn't come out of the childrens maintenance. It's in addition to.
They will only backdate the claim to the date you submit it.

What you have to weigh up is if he then decides to lower his earnings then he will have it reduced anyway so from experience I would say be very careful if hes being reliable with giving you that money regularly, whether itll rock the apple cart so to speak. I'm not saying I agree that he should get away with it, but from experience I know that my ex has now gone self employed and fiddles the figures so I receive a measly £50 a month. He also decides as and when he pays and how much despite being on collect and pay.
They are now beginning enforcement action but I've been advised this can take a year and they still cant guarantee the money.

It's far simpler if they stay in employment as they will just deduct it from his paycheck, but from my experience if they want to avoid it they tend to go self employed.

Hot stepper no he has no overnights. How can you know its right as even i dont know what he is actually paid? he has told me £390 based on having a child living with him and it was £400 when he didnt have the other child. This calculates as two entirely different wages.

Juan, this is exactly my problem ,i know he lies about payrises etc. its beyond frustrating.

The percentage charge only applies if cms have to use collect and pay. Unless your ex is self employed you will lose nothing (apart from a one off £20 payment) by using them.

Parma, oh no that's awful. That's the problem though isn't it when they can declare the incorrect earnings.
I just want honesty, the kids were 6 and 7 when we split and had a huge involvement in their lives so i don't understand why he wouldn't want to help all he can.

I also want to not rock the apple cart because he can be nasty.

This is an eye opener. i wish i knew this sooner.

Thank you.

There is no way he is over paying me and also i know he wouldnt go self employed by choice.

He has always paid but i know he has potential to be on a bigger wage and he would never tell me.

I am on a much lower wage and expected to afford it all.

I was underpaid for four years, didn’t realise until he took a pay cut for a new job. Nothing I could do about it as it was a family arrangement.