Lowering Cms

[MuddlingThroughLifeLittleByLittle]

Dh has a dc age 10. Always paid cms above the stated figure. Lost his well paid job as the company went bust and around here jobs are fee and far between.
So hes taken a job that unfortunately is minimum pay of 18k but has potential to progress in around a year.
However the only way to survive, and to be able to travel to collect dsc 1.45hr round trip, provide when here etc is to lower cms.
Now this is the absolute last resort. We've already cancelled the likes of netflix etc. Sold 1 of our cars. We physically cannot cut back further within our home. He's re done a cms online calculation and with new wage (he's got to tell them anyway as its more than 25% lower) its significantly drops his payments.

This is obviously the last resort.

Other option was to be on a benefit meaning he only would pay £7 pw.

I get that his ex will take a drop in finances but he can't give what he hasnt got. Yet he feels awful. He thought his job was for life so to speak.
He provides everything for dsc when here which goes without saying. Dsc here 3 nights a week
He cant approach his ex about it as shes not allowed contact with us, unless to do with dsc health due to previous issues with how shes treated dh. But that's another story.

Hes on the fence as to whether to change it, but if he doesn't we'd be racking up debts to survive.
We're both working and other dcs at home. Ive juggled my hours to cut 80% of childcare costs for our youngest

I know we're prob BU to lower it but we have no choice.

Ive been the receiving end of similar and i know hard it is but we have to keep a roof over our head and all the dcs

It means he'd be going from paying £350pm to £100 so huge drop. But if he progresses quicker then it goes without saying that he'd raise it. Or if gets overtime which apparently in autumn there's loads of weekends available.

If he can't find a better paid job then he's got no choice really, same as if he was still with their mum.

He tried and is still looking in case something better comes up. But it was the case of take this or no job at all.

theres a lot of irrelevant information in the op. But if you cannot afford it, you cannot afford it.

not sure what the question is. Obviously the child cannot rely on the father financially.

going from a well paying job to minimum wage for a year is a poor choice.

how many dc are there?

If you simply can't pay what you were before, then you can't pay.

But you should pay what you can (and that might be more than CMS) as the money is for DSC. His mum needs to know asap so she can budget accordingly.

Tbh in this situation if they were still one family the fiancés would take a hit and they'd have to cut their cloth. It cant really be helped

cross post. Under £25 a week for a child is very, very poor.

will he still be halving uniform costs, any clubs? Or is it just the £25?

As long as he's applying cuts evenly across his kids it's not unreasonable. You've mentioned you've already made a lot of cuts at home. Life happens, if he was still with her he wouldnt be able to provide income he doesnt have.

What does it mean for them? Is their mum going to be able to keep them fed & housed without it?

£250 per month drop is huge for DSC. There would be some households that could absorb this- but few without impacting quite significantly.

Your household must be reeling too.

Where was the choice? He lost his job as the company went bust.

His child can rely on him as much as any child can rely on their parent not to be let go through no fault of their own.

He can't afford the current rate of CMS then he has to lower it. Simple. Same as when families who have parents that are together have to make cuts due to redundancy. The only difference here is there's no communication between the parents.

Same as if he was too ill to work or died or something. The children's lifestyle will have to adjust accordingly.

It wasn't a choice

Sorry yes he pays for ALL uniform and the only club dsc does. And this will continue as budgeted that in
And obviously school meals on his days etc. He provides all clothes and everything needed here which is 3 days a week.
And yes of course all kids have taken a cut in our home. Including my dc.
But hopefully it is temporary.

He cannot inform her she is not allowed contact with us. Ordered by court due to her previous behaviours towards dh.
Only way she will find out is cms contacting her.

Just checking when you say isn't allowed contact with you. Does that preclude him contacting her?

As you have him 3 nights a week & the mum has him 4 then surely your husband wont need to pay much anyway as you have him nearly 1/2 the time. If dss was with his mum most of the week it would be different but presumably you share costs anyway.

There's nothing you can do - it'll need to be reduced for you all to survive.

If so. Ask the court to inform her. Totally unreasonable for her to have no warning given the magnitude of the drop.

It's fine. It's something she has to accept as a result of their separation.

It isn't his fault and I really wouldn't worry about it.

As soon as he is back on his feet, he can increase the payments. He needs to make sure all his bills etc are covered first.

She would benefit if he had a pay increase so unfortunately she also has to deal with pay reductions. If they were still together she would have to be dealing with it too.

Sounds like it's her fault she's not allowed contact, she should have thought through the consequences of her actions.

I’m assuming you have your own dc’s who don’t belong to your dh?
If so, and he’s included your dc’s into the cms calculation, then I think that’s unfair.

Can you not read? The man lost his job due to the company going bust. He had to take a job paying minimum wage as that was all he could get. There is not always a choice. It is not a case of the child not veing able to rely on the father. OP states that they have the chidl 3 nights a week anyway.
Your post is horrible and judgemental.

If they were still together then she’d have to put up with less money in this situation. As long as it goes back up ASAP when he gets a pay increase then it’s going to have to do for now. Let the CMS break the news.

If you have DSC 6 out of 14 nights could you up it by one and stop the payments?

He cannot inform her she is not allowed contact with us.

What does that order actually state? Is it no contact either way, no sharing of addresses? Could he write her a letter explaining the (facts only) situation? If that is not allowed then there is nothing he can do if he not allowed to contact her he will need to leave it to the CMS.

The reduction is what it is. If it is a case of jobs change and it wasn't his choice then that's that!