50/50 childcare & child maintanance

[Hfgjhcjvjv]

So hoping to get some answers. Both parents have the child equally, they are involved equally (school pick up drop offs, providing clothes, food, taking to after school classes, medical appointments etc). Child maintanance service is useless and unable to provide any clear answers. One of the parents thinks the other should still pay child maintanance. Can anyone help? Is anyone here in this situation? Who decides which os a paying / receiving parent and how if care and provisions are equal? Thanks

Is there a significant discrepancy between salaries?

Is one parent going to have to pay full time childcare because of how 50/50 has been set up (week on/week off, ever changing to manage shift work)?

Who is going to have to come out of work if child is ill? Can ill child be ferried between households? Do both households have back up plans?

How have essentials - school uniform, shoes, haircuts, coats, school lunches, school trips, presents, gifts for attendance at birthday parties etc been split?

My ex-husband earns way in excess of £100k pa. I earn around £14k pa. We both work ft. Exactly 50/50 (court enforced) so he pays zero pounds and zero pence. Oh, and he claims CB for one of our sons just to stop me from getting it. I assume he's paying it back as he's way over threshold.

There are still lots of people out there who have the somewhat misguided view that some form of spousal maintenance etc comes into the equation to "even up" parents who separate where one is much better than the other.

These days it really doesnt unlessone partner has very demonstrably sacrificed their career or earning potentially significantly to support the other.

Much better off I mean

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland I got zero spousal maintenance either (see my previous post).

You're right.

Nickname
I never understand the shitty thing where a high earner who has to repay CB claims it to stop the other. I understand not wanting to pay maintenance if there's true 50/50 care but claiming the CB when you can't keep it yourself is just making someone else needlessly worse off ☹

You can get spousal maintenance if you are married and go through the courts though. Quite often I think.

If you weren’t married then it clearly doesn’t apply.

CMS maintenance wouldn’t be payable if you are 50:50, but a court can order a spouse to child maintenance as part of a divorce financial settlement regardless (people on MNsay it can’t but it can. What it can’t do is order that less than the CMS minimum is payable - it can’t “oust the jurisdiction” of the CMS)

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland

Nickname I never understand the shitty thing where a high earner who has to repay CB claims it to stop the other. I understand not wanting to pay maintenance if there's true 50/50 care but claiming the CB when you can't keep it yourself is just making someone else needlessly worse off ☹

But they're just doing it to be pig headed and lost sight of the fact the money it supposed to benefit the child

Fat too many ex parters have lost sight of that fact

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland It's my "punishment" for leaving him. Explains why we're still in small rented with one loo seven years on while he remains in former five-bed marital home with four cars on the drive.
Cruel is not the word.

@AndcalloffChristmas I was married and was represented in court by both a solicitor and a barrister. Spousal maintenence not awarded.

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2012/9780111526132/regulation/50

If it’s equal care, in all respects, not just in terms of hours, no one pays.

@Nicknamegoeshere I’m not saying it never is, just it can be.

I was married and represented at court too!

There are still lots of people out there who have the somewhat misguided view that some form of spousal maintenance etc comes into the equation to "even up" parents who separate where one is much better than the other

ODFOD. If a together couple had a large discrepancy in income - say £30k to £100k - there would be cries of LTB if he demanded that all child related costs were split 50/50. It would be considered abusive by the majority. Yet 50/50 when a couple split is apparently ‘fair’ and ‘reasonable’.

The child deserves the same standard of living in both homes. So it would seem fair that child support was paid if one parent was earning significantly less. Its not in the childs interest to be on the bread line half their life. Or too see a parent stressed over bill.
Think @Isthatitnow hit the nail on the head.

Why would someone pay maintenance guy a child they're equally providing for?

If there's a discrepancy, then yes they make up the shortfall. If it's genuinely 50/50 (rare and hard to accurately quantify tbf) then they neither should be paying the other a penny

@Isthatitnow I absolutely couldn't agree with you more. My ex-husband financially abused me within our marriage and now continues to do so outside of it.

Re some if the comments. The parent who is demanding child maintanance is actually one who earns approx. 10k more a year.

My ex husband had no contact as he was a danger to both of us (court ordered) and although he earned a lot of money just went to live abroad to avoid CMA. I've learnt never to rely on a man, just myself.

@Hfgjhcjvjv

Re some if the comments. The parent who is demanding child maintanance is actually one who earns approx. 10k more a year.

On what basis do they think they're entitled to maintenance?

ODFOD. If a together couple had a large discrepancy in income - say £30k to £100k - there would be cries of LTB if he demanded that all child related costs were split 50/50. It would be considered abusive by the majority. Yet 50/50 when a couple split is apparently ‘fair’ and ‘reasonable
What's with the ODFOD?
A poster sharing the reality of the situation and challenging misconceptions isn't them saying they agree with it.

There's a LOT of misinformation on here at times regarding splits. For example, common law spouse in countries that don't have those rights, claims that if you move into a man's house then you have a claim to half in a split if you're a SAHP, that spousal maintenance is given out any time there is an income difference, etc. The sooner (mainly women) acknowledge that many of these myths keep them in precarious positions and stop telling other women misinformation, the sooner women will normalise making informed decisions instead of sleepwalking into situations.

I don't see that spousal or child maintenance is applicable here. When you separated however, there may have been an unequal split in assets to accommodate one or the other in terms of what you brought in/earnning potential etc.

@LolaSmiles I waa married to my ex. Still we are in rented seven years post-divorce with no hope of ever owning again. He lives in a huge property!

Nicknamegoeshere
Your examples sound particularly unfair.
Sadly, your situation is proof that quite a lot of the myths perpetuated on here are just that: myths.

I despair when I see people saying things like 'you and DC can stay in the family home until they are 18'. It's so unhelpful.

The child deserves the same standard of living in both homes. So it would seem fair that child support was paid if one parent was earning significantly less. Its not in the childs interest to be on the bread line half their life. Or too see a parent stressed over bill.

Sorry to come back to this old thread but I'm intrigued by what the legal position is here.

We don't even up all families in life. Plenty of kids grow up poorer than other kids because their parents are worse off.

I'm not sure the law does require that a better off parent pay spousal maintenance simply because they earn more, where care is shared 50/50. The duty is on each parent to support their children themselves for their proportion of the time.

Spousal maintenance is for the spouse. Not the child. It used to be more common because women in the past may have had lower education to begin with, were often paid less than men in the work place and commonly gave up all prospects of a career to raise children. Spousal maintenance reflected that women in this position, suddenly ditched in their 40s or 50s, had long ago sacrificed any opportunity they might have had to support themselves, in order to raise children.

It's much less common now because far fewer women truly are in this position. The courts expect divorced women to work and support themselves and their children.

I agree with @NoIDontWatchLoveIsland

Divorce/separation shouldn't be about improving the "poorer" persons lot by being subsidised by the higher earner. Just having kids doesn't entitle you to have a better standard of living than you could have earnt yourself. Assuming that all costs relating to the children are split equally

Most marriages break down within a relatively few number of years now and it's not actually that common for a woman to have sacrificed her career to raise children these days - certainly not for the decades that our mothers previously gave up. So there is very little to "compensate" modern women in terms of lost earnings