To say no to ex?

[Givemeabreak88]

My ex has never had the children over night, we have been split up 4 years. He has a 3 bed but rents out the rooms to lodgers as he would rather have money than have his kids over night (money that we don’t see) he has made the suggestion of having them over night despite the fact he has a 3 bed house and there are 2/3 (not 100% sure) random people living in his house, meaning not only is he asking to have them around strangers who he doesn’t really know, they also wouldn’t have their own room to stay in or beds?! (There is 4 kids but he is only asking to take the oldest 3) Aibu to think that most mums wouldn’t agree to this? He thinks I’m unreasonable to say no but I don’t actually think he is even expecting to have them anyway I think it’s more of “well I would have them but you won’t let me” knowing full well it isn’t a possibility. Would you send your children over night with this set up?

He should be declaring the rent he receives as income, and paying you more child maintenance as a result. Shocking that he thinks £7 a week is acceptable.

Unrelated and unvetted adults around children is a safeguarding risk, so yanbu.

He shouldn’t have been allowed to keep it really but this was about 15 years ago I don’t think they would let him keep it now!

I’ve mentioned what he does to cms but they said the only thing I could do was report him to HMRC

Even if he us "allowed" lodgers, and you only have his word for that, he can only have 2 ,otherwise it us a hmo and that's all sorts of legal stuff to attend to.

Under the rent a room scheme heceont have to pay income tax on the first 8k or so if rent but I imagine it will still be income??

Something sounds odd. If he declares that he had lodgers to the Housing why can’t CMS trace that he has an extra income? I would call them again OP.

In London I’m shocked that he’s allowed to rent rooms out! To be honest I would report him to the housing.

He knows full well he isn’t going to take the children overnight and it’s probably just as well from reading your updates.

Absolutely no. Allow contact, sure, but overnight in those circumstances is a completely unreasonable request.

No. Who are the people he rents rooms to?! Plus why not all of them?! It’s not fair on the youngest

@Ilovecheese53

Something sounds odd. If he declares that he had lodgers to the Housing why can’t CMS trace that he has an extra income? I would call them again OP.

In London I’m shocked that he’s allowed to rent rooms out! To be honest I would report him to the housing.

He knows full well he isn’t going to take the children overnight and it’s probably just as well from reading your updates.

If he's on certain qualifying benefits then it's automatically a £7 standard maintenance regardless of any other income.

It's a glitch in the system and it's hard to get around, but can be done with an income variation. CMS, however, rarely do them as it's a pain in the backside. they'd rather pass it to HMRC in case there is undeclared income

Yes I told cms about it but they just told me to contact HMRC but I would rather not do that as he would know it was me. I’ve checked cab and it says council tenants can have lodgers, I don’t know much about this kind of thing.

EL8888 I have no idea who they are and neither does he really! They are just strangers that he has no idea about their back ground, I know he advertises on spare room website

He may not be doing anything wrong with HMRC so that’s just lazy on their part.

As a live-in ll he can have 2 unrelated lodgers and not be counted as a HMO.

@Givemeabreak88 get back in touch with CMS and tell them you want to apply for a variation on the basis of unearned income.

If you know where he advertises have a look and try and screenshot.

Also keep a copy of any messages or emails where he mentions the lodgers.

Legally I would think if he took you to court for visitation he'd get it. While the situation is not ideal you might want to think if it's really in your kids interest to say no. Im not attacking you but I am encouraging you to give it some thought.

I don’t think it’s in my kids best interest to be in a house with a load of randoms he doesn’t even know, he is allowed to see them he is not being stopped but I don’t think a judge would give overnights in this situation?

lyralalala thanks I will try with cms again but I’m not holding my breath as they’ve never been that helpful in the past.

Why doesn’t he work to support his four children?

If be saying something like "let's make a plan of contact so that we can build up to overnights. The children need you to be a consistent presence in their lives". If he can keep up regular contact, for 6 months, then you'll know that he is serious.
Although I'd also be giving huge weight to what the children say. If your 9 year old doesn't want to share a bed, it doesn't happen. I'd also have the children visit the house before they stay there overnight, but of he's having regular contact, that should be ok.
Kick the ball into the long grass.

@Givemeabreak88

lyralalala thanks I will try with cms again but I’m not holding my breath as they’ve never been that helpful in the past.

When you speak to them request it very specifically.

Ask them if you need to make the request in writing, and then just tell them that you will anyway and then do that (asking for it in writing later is a common tactic)

They don’t have a choice about doing a variation. Unearned income is one of the grounds and income from rental is one of the listed things under it.

If they tell you to call hmrc tell them that he is, as far you are aware, completely legit and does everything through the books so you just need them to do their thing and assess the unearned income

Ask them if you should call for an update in 14 or 28 days

Then when you call for an update and they don’t have one speak to your MP

MPs generally (as long as they can be arsed) can get things moving

Absolutely no way - because of the lodgers.

He claims benefits as unemployed, the HA hasn’t approved him letting rooms out as that would be seen as income and cancel his housing costs part of benefits.
Maybe you can rent rooms out if you’re paying full rent but not on benefits, the rent from lodgers would be classed as income.
He’s committing benefit fraud and avoiding paying proper CM.
Get him reported, you can do it anonymously.

@SBTLove

He claims benefits as unemployed, the HA hasn’t approved him letting rooms out as that would be seen as income and cancel his housing costs part of benefits. Maybe you can rent rooms out if you’re paying full rent but not on benefits, the rent from lodgers would be classed as income. He’s committing benefit fraud and avoiding paying proper CM. Get him reported, you can do it anonymously.

This is incorrect.

Under universal credit rental from lodgers does not count as income. He will be subject to the bedroom tax as he’s a social tenant so he’ll get the allowance for one bedroom and a deduction for two spare rooms as they will not be classed as occupied.

It was also possible to still claim benefits under legacy benefits, the housing element was just dealt with differently.

www.entitledto.co.uk/help/Universal-Credit-Sub-Tenants

It’s dependent on what benefits he claims, the rent he’s receiving is considered if he receives local housing benefit.

@SBTLove

It’s dependent on what benefits he claims, the rent he’s receiving is considered if he receives local housing benefit.

You stated in your post that he couldn’t be having lodgers legit while on benefits. He can.

It’s not counted as income in legacy means tested benefits like ESA and not counted as income for Universal credit.

All he needs, to get the £7 assessment is to receive a qualifying benefit. Evening a small amount. Which he can do whilst legitimately having lodgers, unlike you said.

Which is why the OP needs to apply for an unearned income variation. They can check with HMRC and then if he was fiddling his figures then she can go to HMRC. Any change will only happen from the day the OP claims, which is why she should push CMS to do their job first.

I’d take the enthusiastic approach. ‘It would be awesome for the kids to have a real dad in their life, I love this idea. And follow a pps suggestion: "let's make a plan of contact so that we can build up to overnights’ . Then I’d add of course overnights need to be safe so they can’t stay with a household of rotating strangers, but if they’ve spent a lot of time with you for the next 6 months you could absolutely get a travel lodge room and take them for a night, if it goes well we could look at 2 nights and see it about making it every couple of months, it will be like a holiday for the dc! I’m so excited for them that you’re starting to think like this. And dd youngest will be 6mo older by then so no need to leave her out, she’s be devastated so we will plan for it being all of them.
And make bets with friends on if he either runs immediately or just fades out on the contact plan over coming weeks.

It’s interesting to hear it’s not counted as an income for benefits! I’m sure at one point he was telling me he gets 2 grand a month?! Because he was saying that he doesn’t need to work because he gets the same as his friends that work just for renting out the rooms! (That was when he was renting out all 3 like I said I don’t know if he still is)

@Givemeabreak88

It’s interesting to hear it’s not counted as an income for benefits! I’m sure at one point he was telling me he gets 2 grand a month?! Because he was saying that he doesn’t need to work because he gets the same as his friends that work just for renting out the rooms! (That was when he was renting out all 3 like I said I don’t know if he still is)

If he rents out all three then you can report him as a HMO. I’d be very surprised if the HA would allow that.

The glitch with it not counting is because it reduces the housing benefit/housing component costs. So at one point it was almost encouraged as a way of people funding themselves if they were out of work, in particular if they were home owners (when mortgage interest was paid) as it would save them having to be homed if they lost their house.

It’s one of those ones that does make sense as for most it’s a short-term thing, but seems illogical when it’s a piss taker involved.