How much should the DCs dad pay?

[HowMuchHowMuch]

I posted this on the Parenting board yesterday but only got two responses so I’m posting on AIBU for traffic!

I’ll start by adding context.

We have two children together aged 2 & 3, both of whom have different disabilities. Firstborn was born in 2021 and our second was born in 2022. For various different reasons, their dad gave minimal amounts of money (£50 here, £100 there) each month until Dec 2023 when he finally gain employment.

Since then he’s been giving me £400-£450 each month. I haven’t asked for a specific amount but I think he gives so much because 1) he can afford too and 2) he’s making up for years of lost time. Come September, we’ll be starting a set routine where I have the children from Sunday night - Friday morning and he’ll have them for Friday & Saturday night.

He hasn’t mentioned anything about reducing the amount he gives me but I can see that he’ll be well within his rights to do so. Especially now that he’ll actually need to buy clothes, food etc for them during their time with him. How much do you guys think is a reasonable amount to drop his contribution too? This could be a completely non issue as he may not but it’s been running through my mind so I wondered what was reasonable!

Sorry, I also forgot to add. He’s a HCA that lives at home with his mum. She doesn’t ask him to pay a substantial amount of rent (£50 or so) so he has roughly £1300 left to himself after giving me £450 a month. He has no bills other than a £100 phone bill which includes an iPad too

If you know his income then you can go the CMS website and work out the min they suggest.

Nobody can know OP. Making some assumptions and taking the average HCA salary as around 25k, with him having them 1-2 nights per week, I’ve run that through the CMS calculator which says you’d be entitled to £286 per month from him. So if he checked that, and decided to just pay the CMS amount, you’d get £286 per month altogether.

It doesn’t matter at all who he lives with, whether he pays rent, or what other outgoings he has.

We all know that CMS’ calculations are piss poor so I’m not sure why I’d use that as a comparison when he’s already giving me way above the calculation? Especially as both of our children are disabled and last time I checked, the CMS calculation doesn’t take the costs associated of a disabled child into consideration.

I really just wanted to know what people would personally be happy with so I have no clue why there’s a deleted comment! It’s not that serious at all

I’d use that as your comparison because he could at any time decide to just pay that amount, so that’s what you know he HAS to pay as a bench mark.

If he’s happy to keep the amount as is then just roll with that, if he wants to reduce it, he can. He can’t reduce it below CMS which would be around £290 per month.

The CMS amount is the legal minimum amount he is required to pay. It’s good to know the benchmark if he ever starts being a mean fucker. Anything above that amount is a bonus. I hate saying it but realistically it’s true. He doesn’t deserve a round of applause for that btw. My ex is “self employed” I strongly suspect he can afford to pay a fair bit more towards the care of the children he barely sees but given his employment status I can do fuck all about that.

I hope you and your children’s father can come to a fair agreement between you about child support and shared care, especially given the difficulties you face with your children’s disabilities.

Ah right I get where you’re coming from. Sorry, I think I misunderstood your comment. It’s definitely good to know the absolute minimum he could contribute according to CMS, thank you

as most have said go through the CMS... are you wanting more from him? the amount you get at the moment sounds very generous, so why rock the boat with CMS until you have too.

he's also having the children EVERY weekend! thats impressive, my ex would only have them 1 weekend in 4 because, and i quote here 'i'm entitled to a life too you know!'

Are you happy from him to have every weekend? You'll literally only get to do the functional stuff when they are school age. The drop offs, pick ups and homework. Basically you'll get theb oring stuff and he'll get to do the fun weekend stuff. Anyhow, it's something to think about.

I think it's hard to know what's fair unless you know his income. Also, they won't take into account his outgoings only his income. I would say nothing and play it by ear. If he reduces the amount he gives you significantly then you could go through CM. Although, I do know people who done this and ended up with less.

As pp already said the minimum expected amount is as above, I assume at some point he's going to need to actually have his own place to live so it will need to go down slightly. If either of you are on uc only one parent can be the main carer and you will then obviously get all child elements, disability elements etc. Main carer will also get the dla and child benefit also. If both parents are on a low income I've seen it where each parent claims for a child to enable them both to provide suitable homes and equipment etc but think that's usually done on a 50/50 custody arrangement.

I think some people have misunderstood my post. Nowhere did I say I wanted more money and nowhere did I say I was going to ‘rock the boat’ and go through CMS to have an official claim.

It was my choice for their dad to have them on the weekend as I’ve changed my working days to Saturday and Sunday each week. My week days are filled with constant appointments for one of my children so it makes sense for me to have them during the week. Thanks for the comments anyway!

then what are you asking? i thought you were asking if he can reduce his payments because he's going to have DC every weekend?

the answer is yes he can, and he can for these reasons. the agreement you have is between you and him, theres no formal agreement in place so he could stop paying you tomorrow and you can't do a thing about it.

the advise is to go through CMS, make it formal, however you are likely to find that his payments are reduced but them.

Will you have child care fees to pay for these children so you can work?

What does your childcare cost. From an ethical perspective, I would start with half of that.

do you have any out of pocket medical expenses given their conditions? Add half of that as well.

On face value I'd say $600 per month. But if you have significant childcare or medical bills then it might be better to go by the cms amount then 50/50 on those expenses.