Child maintenance during lockdown

[Idratherbeasleep]

So I got a text from the cms today saying payments are going down to £6.87 a week of something down from £50, DC's dad is self employed I think, has been fiddling his earnings for years. I've been furloughed so am 20% down already, luckily we can still get by, it will be tight though. I get people aren't working to earn money but I feel a bit annoyed that it seems to be the resident parents who are left in the shit in a sense. And yes before you jump on me I get he has Bills to pay too and isn't earning anything, but. I am paying more having DC at home constantly in food, bills etc. Still need clothes and shoes. He's had years of working FT all the hours he can (literally) only declaring a small amount now has a mortgage while I've only been able to work minimum wage/flexible jobs because I cant afford childcare. Like I said luckily we will get by but aibu to think they need to come up with a plan for this? I mean I know people who do rely on maintenance to feed/clothe their kids and if the nrp is able to just call up cms and say I'm not working I cant pay with no questions surely lots of kids are really going to suffer?

Also partly needed to engage in a debate that's not with a small child because I'm bored shitless

I am going to say YANBU simply for this fact/confession.

They dont where they maintain and share contact and responsibilities.

I agree re furlough pay. Those who have been honest with their earnings get the last laugh now!

I don’t understand why the government can’t pay what the NRP is failing to pay at the moment. That can then been seen as a loan to the NRP and of course, if they default in that loan they are taken to court just like if they defaulted in money owed to a company. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I can’t believe the OP is getting short shrift on this thread. What a patriarchy we live in, when women don’t even question that fathers ought to be responsible for supporting their children. I despair.

Totally agree. Don't even get me started...

In the same boat OP.

My DD dad Is self employed and has been fiddling his earnings for the last seven years.

I am so frustrated as he was paying a joke amount and I contested it with the CMS, went to court and they agreed to put it up to the amount of someone in a similar role in a similar area as he didn't send in any of the financial info they requested. It was supposed to be signed off in March then all this happened.

He hasn't paid anything since February as he has told the CMS he has no work. It's just been added to the debt he already has with them. At which he pays back £10 a month. I wish they did mortgages. The debt is about 6k.

He must be getting 80% of what he declares so in theory he should still be paying the maintenance or 80% of it surely because that's what they calculated his original
CMS on.

I'm raging now. For me and for every other person who has had to go through this. It's a joke. They won't do anything about the debt. Why do they not provide more resource to work with the HMRC to challenge the Self employed as that's where a lot of the issues seem to sit.

He doesn't want to pay because I don't need it. I can pay my bills on my wage as I'm not furloughed but I am still only getting 80% as they have reduced our hours to 80%. It's tight.

I always thought the CMS were reliable till I had to use them myself.

Why do so many get away with it??

@Oakmaiden I still stand by that too. I realised yesterday evening reading through replies that this is the most adult human interaction I've had in almost 8 weeks, and it feels soooooo good 😂

CMS is supposed to reduce disparity between households but there is no provision where that disparity is RP earning more than NRP

No. Not the case. That assumes that (the majority) men always earn more than (the majority of) women. We all have a responsibility to support our children, regardless of what the other parent earns or claims in benefits. CMS is a contribution calculated using a blunt tool as a minimum towards a child or children’s upbringing when a child spends the majority of his/her home in one household.

Divorce calculations are a means by which an attempt is made to even up income/assets of both households. This is why lower earning (majority) women end up with a larger divorce settlement than (mainly) men who earn more. And what allows men to moan about being fleeced by the ex.

@Neednewwellies or even make the arrears into an official debt every quarter so that the resident parent has the option to take it upon themselves to enforce them via the claims courts/bailiffs etc

@Howaboutanewname

That is the assumption made.

I don’t agree re benefits for the children - why in shared care is there no provision to share them or offset CMS accordingly?
If you want equality it works both ways.

Family courts with full disclosure are a better solution. But clearly too time consuming and expensive to provide as a service to the general public.

I suppose CMS is plugging gaps left by the law for cohabiting couples and as you say, is a blunt tool that’s effective for many, but not for many others.

I still haven’t been paid CM. I read in the news that furloughed staff will be paid ‘by the end of April’ so asked him yesterday whether he’d been paid, nope. Checked again today because he’s usually paid weekly on a Friday, nope. Tried to fob me off saying his boss was still waiting for a ‘code’ to enter the furlough portal. No code is necessary, only PAYE number and a couple of other things such as tax code and employees details to put the claim in so obviously he’s lying to me.

My friend owns a small business and her staff were paid yesterday, she also said the system was incredibly easy to use. I’m really fed up now and a bit upset tbh.

OP you are not being unreasonable -accepting a reduction is fine but even those on benefits pay £5.

As always it is the RP who makes up the short fall. I earn more than the DF of my DSCs, but he is still responsible for contributing to their upkeep. He has been put on 50% of basic so we have cut maintenance by 50% on the provisio when he goes back to normal it goes back to normal amount.

Kids do not suddenly become cheap - mine are eating me out of house and home and my food bill has rocketed.

@Covert20. I totally agree, apparently we should ‘put up and shut up’. My ex husband does the right thing, not missed a payment in 14 years. I don’t consider myself lucky at all.

I don’t agree re benefits for the children - why in shared care is there no provision to share them or offset CMS accordingly?

Just because you don’t agree doesn’t mean benefits for some households are a necessary lifeline and sadly, that includes many, many working households,

There is no provision for benefits in ‘shared care’ because benefits are means tested and so for a separated couple could mean very different things, particularly where one household has only one wage and the other has two. Ideally, a separated couple with similar financial circumstances where costs are genuinely shared (rare in my experience) would make their own arrangements. If care is shared then surely this can be arranged?

@Howaboutanewname

I meant things like PIP in particular, which arent means tested. I don’t think we should be sharing UC etc or anything each parent can claim in their own right.

I don't think the none resident parent should get any money from children benefits. If they have them one night a week do they get £3 from child benefit? If the go through the cms they pay only the minimum they need to. I find it quite shocking that the none resident would think this is acceptable. They should be thankful that their children are being raised while they are off enjoying their lives.

Hmmm....even DLA/PIP is an issue. I receive it for one of my children. I buy everything said child needs and ex will keep what he wants from his bag when he goes to see him. He has never bought him anything himself. Wouldn’t occur to him. And that’s not because I receive money (he’s probably not even aware we get anything) but because he considers it my responsibility, and simply because he doesn’t consider it his responsibility at all to buy anything for his children. This is why I say shared care is rarely just that - I have paid for childcare on my ex’s time for years, for example, because he goes on holiday at short notice and won’t get childcare to cover his time. I learnt fast that the only way to keep my job was to pay for childcare full time to keep the space open. Yet he is happy to use said childcare weekly because it suits him. When we shared care 50/50, it was me who took time off when the children were ill, me who did medical appointments, haircuts, school uniform, school lunches, shoes, etc All 50/50 meant was that he picked the child up from childcare Impaid for and gave him dinner. There are no
Laws that can enforce one parent to pay a fair contribution to such costs, let alone half the costs if on paper care is 50/50.

I always said I wouldn’t do 50/50 if he wanted that I would have given him the kids full time. And paid

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/coronavirus-child-maintenance-payments-a9493231.html%3famp

It seems a lot are not paying

I don’t understand how so many women don’t seem to really know the men they’re procreating with. In all your pre baby discussions and all your post baby discussions before you separated, there was never an incline of this dickish behaviour? This seems so shockingly widespread that even as a 49yr old woman I seem clearly naive in this.
When DH and I separated there was never any doubt that I would stay in the house with the children and he move out but continue to pay the mortgage. He also pays a substantial amount of his salary each month to support me and them. He actually said that he thinks that’s only fair as I massively stepped back career wise to bring up his kids and allow his career to flourish. I’m currently building my career back up but until I do he’ll continue to support us. But well before our marriage broke down I always knew if that were yo happen then he wouldn’t shaft us because he’s a decent man and an excellent father. He says himself what sort of man sees the mother of his children living in hardship whilst they swan on without a care? I really feel but those women whose ex DHs are feckless but I’m always stunned by how many there are. How are we bringing up our sons to behave this way?

Neednewwellies - worse - his mother who was shafted by his father thinks his behaviour is fine and my mother who was shafted by my father, can understand it apparently 🙄

I don’t understand how so many women don’t seem to really know the men they’re procreating with. In all your pre baby discussions and all your post baby discussions before you separated, there was never an incline of this dickish behaviour?

How do you suggest that I knew that the man who was kind and generous, who spent thousands of his saves from pre-us on fertility treatment and who spent hours reading stories to my bump would decide when our girls were 6 months that parenting wasn't for him and walked out expecting me to just accept he didn't want anything from us anymore so we shouldn't want anything from him?

Also in my case the person who is most embarassed by him is his mother. She has a relationship with her GC when he doesn't. So does his siblings.

The number of people who know they are procreating with a loser who is going to abandon them is considerably smaller than the number of people who are completely shocked by their exes behaviour.

When you consider that DV often starts from seemingly nowhere during pregnancy it's fair to say that men can completely change once a woman is pregnant or has a child, and women often have absolutely no chance of being able to foresee it

@Neednewwellies that's lovely for you and most men should be like that but I dont know any like that. I mean I knew my ex was a dick to me, but didnt realise how much of his parenting was forced purely because he lived with us. That was the easiest excuse to be a shit parent for him and it was my fault apparently because I'd asked him to leave. Also was always spouting only deadbeats dont pay for/take care of their kids. They talk a good game until they realise how easy it is to do nothing when theres no one forcing them. And then tell everyone who will listen how hard it is for then to not see their kids as much as they'd like and how they pay so much money for them.

Until it's socially acceptable among men to not pay then nothing will change.

I'm utterly convinced that's the reason that CMS don't have the political will to use the powers they have

Until the decent men find it as abhorrent as drink driving that their mates shun paying for their kids, and say so, nothing will change

@lyralalala, I’m not saying it’s your fault, just that it shocks me. I’m certainly not being snooty in any way. It’s a disgrace that your ex behaved like that but a bigger disgrace that the law allows it.
Maybe because we met at university but didn’t decide to have children until 35 so I felt like I really knew him.
@Idratherbeasleep, I’ve got to believe that there’s more decent men out there than there is complete tossers. I’m sorry your ex was so awful.