Lying to receive more child maintenance.

[Propal]

Going through a horrendous time with my partners ex. They have been separated for four years and have one shared child. His ex has always been volatile and unpredictable. We share his child exactly 50/50 with his ex. We both work from home so are able to juggle this between us. Even though we share his child equally, my partner has always paid his ex £450 a month to pay for things such as hobbies, school uniforms, school dinners etc. This is because it is a parent portal pay app and it is easier for it all to be done by one person (she was happy with this). Sometimes there wouldn’t be anything extra to pay for his child, but he always honoured the £450.

2 months ago we announced our pregnancy and since then his ex has made our lives hell. She has opened a case with the CMS and told them that we never have his child overnight, and therefore she is entitled to huge maintenance payments. The CMS have said that, whilst they understand we are telling them that we have 50/50, they will believe the mother as she claims child benefit on behalf of their child. They have told us to appeal but in the meantime we need to pay massive maintenance bills, which mean we are not going to be able to afford to do much (or anything) for my partners child whilst they are here.

I do understand that most of the time, it is the mother who is fucked by the dad over maintenance, but in this case we are really struggling and it’s very upsetting. We can’t believe that the CMS just agrees with my partners ex without asking for evidence or any sort of proof.

Has anybody been in this situation? We have texts showing his ex acknowledging 50/50 contact, evidence of things we pay for whilst the child is here etc.

I am really struggling mentally with this and how we will cope going forward. It’s putting a huge strain on our relationship as well as finances as we simply cannot afford these payments and to look after my partners child half the time and prepare for our new baby.

"Collect and Pay is very hard to get put on a case even when you have evidence that the NRP isn't paying."

The only time I've heard of Collect and Pay working is when the NRP is on Universal Credit.

Put in a counter claim for CMS as well.

you must be just as entitled to CM from her as she is from you, if it’s 50:50.

It's very easy to get a copy of the birth certificate if you need one.

Normally it costs £16 but, if you have a GRO number for the certificate then it costs £12.50.

https://www.gov.uk/order-copy-birth-death-marriage-certificate

How much more maintenance is your partner's ex partner wanting?

So just put in for a CAO and then the rest flows from that. Meanwhile have your DH call the ex and tell her that right now she's getting 450 pcm from him but if she wants to go via CMS then that's what he will pay from now on and only that, which given the CAO will want to support the 50 50 results in zero for her.

Post in legal advice. I’ve seen this on reddit a lot.

if you pay you can’t claim the money back when/if overturned but if it’s taken from you, CMS has liability. Something along those lines. Double check.

Is his daughter's school in catchment area for your address? Change her address there if it is. Put in the claim for child benefit and counter CMS claim. What she is doing amounts to fraud.

Why is your husband paying care fees? They are roughly £1000 per week per person, so if he can afford to pay this for both his parents how much does he earn?

My advice would be to go to court and get a CAO to put in writing the overnights.

My ex doesn't have the kids as much as the court order sats and they won't increase his payments because the court order says...and gave told me to go to court and get it changed to what he actually has them. Yeh right court will effectively take away time from a parent

As a solicitor I act for clients in CMS disputes/appeals.

Even if there is a court order for equal shared care the CMS will still make the non-CB receiving parent pay until an appeal is heard. They're the worst agency imaginable.

If your husband is paying two lots of care home fees a month, his income must be pretty close to 6 figures. Why exactly is he paying those fees? It’s a very unusual thing to do?

You mention that his ex is remarried. Is YOUR income taken into account when discussing financial support for his child

How can they overturn the current child benefit situation if it’s been determined that as far as they’re concerned, the OPs DH isn’t having the child half the time? I would guess it’s near impossible to have a successful counter claim accepted in these circumstances.

What a ridiculous post.

Why is that ridiculous? Normally care home fees are paid by the state unless property is sold to pay for them or it's funded by the person's savings. I'm confused why the OP's husband is paying for them.

He must be on a very high salary, and if he didn't have this expense then he and the OP would be much better off financially.

When you say massive, how much are they making him pay?

Get a court order . Represent himself. C100 form.
Once it's in an order submit to cms.
They will adjust accordingly

Dh had similar I feel your pain

Does the £450 cover half the costs of the school dinners, uniform, trips etc? Because if so, then that's fair as 50/50 should apply to costs too. But if its more than (because who needs £900 a month on that stuff) would telling the ex you will never pay her that again work to persuade her to stop cutting her nose off?

@NothingAGoodCuppaDoesntFix Did your DH pay the amount CMS has decided on in the mean time?

How much more is the CMS amount @Propal ? It might be worthwhile for him to not pay into the informal account if the CMS isn’t hugely more..?

Very perspective dependent. In our experience the CMS screws NRP.and is very one sided to RP.
I think it just depends decent NRP get screwed as often as decent RP but were much more aware of circumstances most like our own

They are trying this with my ex right now they estimate its going to take over 90 days for me to get a payment my ex hasn't paid the right amount since March and last year he went five months paying nothing and didn't get to the collect and pay stage

There’s a lot of questions being repeated by posters as the OP isn’t actually asking them. I understand it’s a stressful situation but the clearer explanation makes it easier to provide accurate responses. Maybe posting in legal will be helpful OP?

If what the OP is claiming is accurate, it’s clear that there is a massive disparity in income between both parents. 2 sets of care home fees equates to around 8k monthly.

50/50 childcare arrangements are far from ideal and can be used as a deliberate strategy by some oarents to wipe out orminimise the amount of maintenance they are required to pay, not least because the CMS is an utterly useless organisation. There are are a significant number of high earning parents. ( usually men) who would rather see their child deprived of financial support than ‘hand miney’ to their ex.

Those high earners may also claim to have other financial obligations which impact the financial support they pay fir their children.

I’m asking why the OP sees fit to mention the Ex has remarried. If his existence is relevant in the context of financial support for this child, then the OPs income is relevant too.

I hope that clears things up for you-I’m sure you didn’t mean to be quite so rude.

Speak to your local MP, they can help sort this quickly and take some of the stress away. There is an MP route that is different to ours. Keep up the contact. When you do have a baby that impacts on CMS so that you pay less too.
why are you paying for care for parents…