What should child maintenance cover:

[Caccini42]

Ex earns 6 figures (150k in 2022 but he claims he is earning less now). He is paying my £500 pcm cm. It’s a 50/50 nights split but I still do a lot of the ‘school runs’ for ds who is eotas, plus both kids are here for lunch/tea on ‘his’ weeks.

I earn max 20k pa working self employed part time around ds’ needs, his appointments, school runs etc. (he is autistic, adhd, spd, pda etc). I spend a ridiculous amount of admin time each week sorting out his out-of-school education.

ex-h says that because he pays me child maintenance (c£500pcm) then I should pay for:

• all of the kids clothes, shoes, coats etc
• all of the kids hobbies (dd is a grade 7 musician, her music lessons cost over £60 per week)
• dd’s provisional driving license, insurance, driving lessons
• Loss of earnings as I have to take ds to his farming provision weekly - which wipes out an entire mornings earnings for me :( (exh simply won’t do it on his weeks, so I have to)

Plus he expects me to orgamise my working week so that I can accommodate all of ds’ medical appointments (he has quite a few)

Can anyone point me in the direction of legislation or am explanation of the fact that child maintenance is meant to be paid so that children’s costs are balanced in a way that it’s not crippling one parent?

There is no legislation that says that.

But when a parent has contact they are responsible for all care during that time. So any child care needed, school runs, providing meals, providing clothes and paying for activities.

I think you need to return to court and have the arrangements changed. This is not a 50-50 split at all. Your ex is a total twat. He either needs to step up and parent during his time or hand over to you and pay the increased maintenance.

Child maintenance is used for literally maintaining the living costs of children when they are in the receiving persons care. When the children are in your exs care he has to pay for his own clothes for them, shoes, coat, furniture for their bedrooms and any food or share of the bills they use in his house. With regards to other things you may need to seek legal advice as I don’t think anything else is covered as necessity. He’s using this maintenance situation to control you. 100% seek legal advice to see if you can force a fairer split for the sake of your earnings. You may need to explain to your DC that whilst on their dads time as he’s not willingly to fairly split it like you are and you can’t afford it that things like hobbies will only be able to be done on your time. You need to create reasonable expectations for your child and sometimes it means letting them down and it sucks. You don’t have to badmouth their dad to them but you do need to have an open and honest dialogue with them but try to remain emotionally neutral and stick to the facts.

Unfortunately it's supposed to cover absolutely everything for your time.

If he refuses to pay for extra curricular stuff, driving lessons etc you can't force him to pay. If he refuses to take dc to whatever clubs etc on his time you can't force that either.

As pp says though this doesn't sound like 50/50,so it's maybe worth looking at the actual split and trying to claim more that way.

The system of a fucking joke.

I don’t know much about CMS as my application was pretty straight forward but I know from my sister and various other friends that have gone through it that they only seem to be interested in where the children sleep half of the time eg If they stay at their dads more than they stay at home, you wouldn’t be entitled to much, if anything at all. My sister was in the same boat as you but her dd was sleeping at her dads so she was only entitled on the days she stayed at home.
If you can, look at the child maintenance calculator on the gov website then get in contact with them. If you can prove you’re paying what you say you are, they may change the amount your receiving.

If it's 50:50 he could get away with paying you nothing. What a prince. 🙄

However, if you earn 20K, driving licences and extra-curricula activities may just not be a reality.

Music lessons and driving aren’t necessary so he needs to decide if he can afford to fund them (you can’t). The EOTAS package should cover someone to take him shouldn’t it? Dh should do his days and you yours and the EWO should be sorting him if he keeps his child from his education.make sure you are claiming everything ds is eligible for.

This. You need to tell when kids are on his 50 percent he does all school runs, care and feeding. You will be working so won't be available. If he refuses go back to court.

It's certainly not meant to cover:-

• all of the kids hobbies (dd is a grade 7 musician, her music lessons cost over £60 per week)
• dd’s provisional driving license, insurance, driving lessons

If you can't afford these luxuries, then they stop.