Non resident parent's obligation to support their children

[MargotBamborough]

Another day, another thread about an unmarried woman separating from the father of her children.

This gets discussed a lot on here, but I can see the logic for why unmarried couples should not necessarily have any financial obligation towards each other when they separate. People should have the right to live together without being considered a single financial unit in the eyes of the law, and enforcing marriage-like obligations on people who have not chosen to get married seems wrong to me. Even if this results in some unmarried people, particularly women, making themselves financially vulnerable.

What I don't understand is why the non resident parent's financial obligation to support their children is so small. If the parents of two preschoolers separate, for example, how is the resident parent, who is most likely the mother, supposed to keep a roof over their children's heads if they can't work, and how can they work if they can't afford to pay two sets of childcare fees with the piss-poor contribution she is getting from the children's other parent?

I realise that even claiming the minimum that non resident parents are obliged to pay via CSA can be impossible sometimes - and that's a separate issue - but who on earth decided it was fair or reasonable that the non resident parent's obligation to pay should be limited to an amount which doesn't even touch the sides of the actual cost of raising their children?

I know it's another argument in favour of getting married, but that doesn't help resident parents in this situation, or indeed their children.

Does anyone have any bright ideas about how things could be changed to make the system fairer?

This is purely theoretical for me, but the injustice of it just grates. I've tried to use the gender neutral "resident parent" and "non resident parent" throughout, but we all know the reality, which is that it is usually women who get screwed over in this way, and I assume that is why the problem hasn't been addressed.

They should deduct CMS (as it is now known) like a tax and deduct at source linked to HMRC. The system should be set up as standard so that it is done normal to be done like that.
I am still owed thousands and my son is over 22 years old now! I shouldn’t be owed anything!

Nursery fees are also based on your income in France. And we have two children in the same nursery, one of whom has a "public" place part subsidised by the government, and the other of whom has a "private" place part funded by my employer. The "private" one costs us 50% of the full rate, with my employer paying the other 50%. The "public" one costs us the maximum amount of the subsidised rate, based on our income. We would be paying less if we were on a lower income. We get billed separately for each child but we pay by direct debit.

If it is possible to successfully administer a system this complicated, it should be possible to bill separated parents each for their contribution towards nursery fees.

My xh did not want 50/50 or even 70/30. You don't foist a child on a person who does not want them and then, as the 'rp' (mum) it's very hard to try to coparent amicably with someone who does not want to parent your shared children.
In the case of my xh, an expectation that CM would be paid by him even if that meant his new wife paying would have been the only route to getting him to step up. He quit his job to look after her DC meaning he did not have to pay for his own. New children should not trump existing children and women who facilitate that are bad women.

That still relies on people making the choice to do it. I can't see that men who refuse to get married because they don't want the mother of their children to "steal all their money" are going to want a civil partnership any more than they want to get married.

That's why I think there needs to be a rethink of the system to ensure that people who don't use condoms pay for their damn kids.

I don’t know if people can still do this, but when I was five (60 years ago) my dad left my mum and his four children and disappeared.

They had been married 10 years. My dads family refused to let my mum know where he was. She was never able to get anything from him, and we lived on benefits paid by the taxpayers for years.

I met him once when I was 17, then he died 4 years later. No inheritance.

I believe nowadays CMS will take maintenance from the non residents payroll, and I agree it can be ridiculously low. I also know some NR parents will take the piss by deliberately not working or undervaluing income.

Some may say the system has improved since my mothers time, but I guess there will always be people (mostly men) who can morally justify to themselves for behaving despicably towards their own children.

The problem is with the way cms is calculated. Other countries do it very differently. In my own, it starts with the income of the NRP, but then it asks the income of the RP, the child care costs paid by each parent, and the health care costs paid by each parent (and you must acknowledge that even with the nhs if a child has particular needs families will have costs), and then time spent.

the calculation is then balanced based on both incomes less the biggest costs of raising a child, which for a young child are not food or even shelter, its child care.

Perhaps then there needs to be a system where child maintenance is deducted from a non resident parent's income at source like PAYE where possible, and the amount should be based on their income but subject to a floor which assumes working 40 hours per week for minimum wage, and being in arrears makes you ineligible to claim any benefits.

It’s all just so unfair. I’m owed thousands for my three and he’s just job hopped again after one payment. This was after 5 years of them not even collecting a single penny. If I didn’t buy food/provide housing etc, I’d have social services on the door. He doesn’t pay and he gets polite letters requesting that he makes a payment 🙄 Then I get the insult of them writing to me saying they’re going to write off my arrears…I don’t think so!

No idea what the answer is though. The government just don’t care. What I don’t get is why, when they stop work, the collections stop. If you stop work then your other bills don’t stop. You may well not have the money but council tax would allow you to go overdrawn to get their money and send in bailiffs before you knew it. CMS just can’t be arsed.

Unless it was state provided childcare this doesn’t really work though. I could put my kids in a nursery that cost £1200 a month or £2000 a month in my area. Who gets to make that decision? Does the resident parent get to make it and they other parent has to pay when they’ve had no say?
What if the non resident parent’s relative would provide childcare but resident parent didn’t want that offer?
What about having children in nursery that is longer than the working hours?
It’s not an easy solution.
Ultimately 50/50 contact would be the most fair financially but again many parents don’t actually want that for various reasons.

But that could be because he has a choice in the matter and society as a whole lets him get away with it.

What would he do if he was made to and was in some way regulated to prove the child's health and mental wellbeing was being supported?
And if he didn't he would be charged with neglect and faced a prison sentence?

the quitting your job to not pay child maintenance thing is odd. Judges here can do a review and determine that a person could be employed and chose not to work and set maintenance back to previous levels. They can do the same for choosing to be underemployed. The person can continue to not work, but that doesn’t remove the obligation to pay for their own child.

the current system allows for the NRP's wages to be garnished at sourced, they just rarely use it.

Funny because I can't see many non resident parents going for it.

Plenty of them can barely manage EOW. Many of them aren't seen for dust.

And that is setting aside the issue of 'is this best for the children?'.

'Did your ex actually pay 50% of the childcare bill though?'

Yes. I have ds about 345 days a year, but ex pays half of all bills, probably because he knows if I took him to court it would cost him more - he's a high earner.

The good (and bad) thing is that ex is a completely inept and lazy parent. The upside is that I get to decide schooling, care, everything that matters, without him interfering.

The downside is I get to decide everything - even when some practical support would be useful.

On the whole, I'm happy how it is. DS & I have a calm happy home/routine. We've done ok.

Lord it’s all enough to make me feel like people ought to pass some sort of psychological readiness test to be allowed to have children at all… are you a mostly emotionally functional human who will do your best to put your own nonsense aside + put your child first? No? NO BABY FOR YOU.

I know this would be practically impossible + also probably v. Unethical. But…

And this is the point of the thread, how do you balance what "is best for the children" against what the NRP should pay, or who should control what.

Doesn't that only apply in the case of a divorce though?

That sounds eerily like the nonsense that the idiots from Father's 4 Justice come out with.

It's just another attempt to control women.

Op I think childcare costs being split would be a good start. NRPs with EOW get to work unencumbered by childcare and its patently unfair.

I would raise the percentage payable under CMS to more accurately reflect living costs and make unearned income such as property assets and inheritance be taken into account. Too many self employed deadbeat fathers fiddle the figures.

I would remove driving licences and passports for wilful non payers.

Ah. But were you married to your ex?

It also applies to very high earners who you have to take to Court to get a true proportion of their income for child maintenance.

Also with divorce after 12 months, unless stated in the financial order, it reverts to the CMS.

Choosing* to have children requires the agreement of both parties - so the woman can make her agreement conditional on the man agreeing to enter into a civil partnership.

(* I deliberately said "choosing", I know that accidents do happen, and this won't cover that scenario - but the majority of children are planned)

Why should either party need to get married so that the other takes proper financial responsibility for their children?

we need a better system that ensures men take financial and personal responsibility for their children. Marriage should be irrelevant. We need a better maintenance system which allows assets to be transferred if needed. At the moment, the children’s act does allow this in limited circumstances but it’s too difficult to use. The cms is useless.

imo we should also be moving away from “marriage as a meal ticket” idea for women too. It’s hugely regressive that women are told to marry for “security” (well on mn anyway). We need enforceable pre nuptials etc so that people who want to can protect their assets. women who did get married but are higher earners end up doing the childcare and housework and paying out feckless exes. Split of assets should only be other than as contributed if the other part has genuinely contributed in kind. There should not be a windfall for being married

Women do a huge amount of unpaid work when it comes to children- this should be valued and shared regardless of marital status.

I'd agree that collection via PAYE (just like how Student loan isn't tax, but is collected via PAYE) would be sensible for child maintenance.

I'm not sure about basing it solely on their income - it could lead to unintended consequences in some edge cases.

Why should either party need to get married so that the other takes proper financial responsibility for their children?

@Heelenahandbasket I didn't suggest getting married. I suggested something which would ensure they'd take responsibility without getting married.

Sorry but the childcare cost split doesn't work.

Say there is a nursery and a CM, both OFSTED registered good, but the CM is £20 more expensive a day.

The NRP is going to argue for the nursery to be used and the law will back the NRP. However the nursery has done something of concern e.g. giving the child food the child is allergic too, forced the child to eat all their food, that OFSTED refuses to recognise as a concern. (These are real examples.) The NRP doesn't care about these matters.

This means the RP will still end up paying more and actually could end up with crap in Court for not sending the child to the agreed childcare provider.