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.

Wow that is fantastic! Well done!

Screen shot any pictures & the date on them for evidence of child being with dad?
Send them in?

@Propal excellent update!

OP, assuming you're in England, your partner is lying to you about the care home fees, which means he might also be lying to you about the financial situation with his ex.

The Council isn't refusing to fund the care home fees because your PIL lice in a private care home. They're refusing to fund because your PIL have a valuable asset (their house) so are above the funding threshold.

Well done OP. And I think it’s lovely that your partner and siblings are looking after their parents. Why some previous posters seemed to focus on this rather than the lying ex baffles me.
Great news

Well thank God for that. Please don't pay her any more money. Just provide for your step son whilst he is in your care.

@EmmaGrundyForPM I think you’ve misunderstood or I haven't explained it well.

I know that the council won’t fund his parents care because of the house that they own. The parents and siblings don’t want to sell the house so they are self-funding. The parent's house also provides jobs and accommodation for people who used to work for them( house caretaker, gardener) and my parents-in-law and the siblings don’t want to have to tell the former staff to leave their homes that they have lived in for decades.

My partners parents have had the house and estate passed down through the generations. They have expressly said they want the house kept in the family and not to be sold.

OP you don't need to justify the care home position .. I don't understand why this thread has been derailed by people obsessed with it !

@Andwegoroundagain Thank you. I don’t understand why people are more concerned about the care home fees than the fraud and theft attempt either.

I guess it is an unusual situation.

The house caretaker has lived and worked on the estate for 40 years and is now an elderly man in his 70s himself…nobody wants to see him homeless if it can be avoided.

@Propal does the house have business insurance? A lot will cover legal fees for fraud, it also sounds like he has connections, any lawyer friends to write a strongly worded letter to her about fraud. I would get the CAO in place now or possibly even push for full custody. The way people assume the father is useless makes me worry for my son's future as a boy going into the world.

@Propal having read to the end of the thread before posting, I am pleased for you all (most importantly your step-child). This has now hopefully been resolved without anyone takong further action. As someone who works within the family courts it should always be a last resort. As to why people have become focused on care home fees/income etc....they are nosey and nothing more!

Hi Advice please. I am the PP was RP for 13 years with a court order. Children older and swapped where they wanted to be as I am in a LT relationship and live together. I requested a MRC after CMS decision as RP said I have less than 103 nights. I challenged this and sent dates of previous and planned contact. Received a letter saying RP denied this and only 1 night per week + 37 additional. Also untrue as 3 nights a fortnight + extra. This Summer I have had 21 additional nights. They want evidence such as a letter from a solicitor but not clear what that means. If not they take RP word. Not sure what to do. Frustrating thing is I never went to CMS to maintain a reasonable relationship. RP now getting nearly double what they paid me for 2 children for 1. Can I go now to a solicitor or is it a tribunal?

So yes, I have had the experience. In fact the tribunal is finally here in 2 weeks.

I have 3 sons, 1 of which has chronic kidney disease. Their Mother decided to leave the UK around 5 years ago to live in Barbados, during the pandemic. She rented out the family home and just moved away.

She did not however tell the CMS she had moved however, she lied and said she was still here. The CMS made me feel as if I was the liar, I was the bad guy. I refused to pay maintenance as much out of necessity as protest. They bullied me, the stole my savings and they threatened me with bailiffs. All the time, the Mother was sitting on beach in the Carribean partly funded by the UK tax payer.

Women like her should be jailed without a doubt. Unfortunately my experience with the CMS has led me to be believe it is a corrupt organisation that believes in profit before children. I have complained to my MP's, Dominic Read and now Monica Harding, neither want to deal with this issue. I told the Police, as a man, I was ignored despite this being coercive abusive control. Why write laws if the Police don't uphold them?

I write to the under secretary of state, but he turned out to be useless. The fraud committed against me as taken a serious toll on my health. There is no justice. The CMS system is a game of charades from start to end. They don't care about the truth.

Listen, for hours and hours I have spoken to CMS operative who I assumed were trying to help, I realised later on that they were not. It is a fact that CMS operatives are not trained in CMS procedure, ask them, I promise you they are not! They are only trained to say that they rely upon HMRC and their child benefit decision. You need to be aware that they only give the impression they are helping because they are trained to keep you on the phone for debt collection evidence. You are being interrogated! This tactic has probably come from SERCO who are the private company profiting from the CMS, it's a business!!!!!!

Regarding HMRC - After huge chats with them, two things came to light that you should know. Firstly, that HMRC are hugely frustrated that the CMS rely upon them, they say their decision making is entirely separate. Secondly, that the previous government took away their powers to investigate the truth. This means it is unlikely you can prove anything. My conclusion is that the DWP have deliberately set up a system that seems to care about the truth but in fact, does not. I can only conclude that the CMS is in fact a massive con trick.

My conclusion is that the CMS has arrived at the conclusion that they would rather force unfair payments than see children out on the street. The idea that the procedures in place will somehow lead to justice is simply a charade. The CMS are essentially criminals.

I get your point but imagine how ridiculous it would get, constant he said she said, dealing with the most pathetic attempts to get out of child maintence and trying to decide what's true or not between squabbling parents, I wouldn't want that job.

My son's dad has paid nothing for 9.5 years since we split in 2015. He sees him 1 day a week and 2 sleepovers a month, I finally took him to CMS after asking for nothing for a decade and now he wants to take me to court for 50/50 custody just to get out of paying it. Its a load of shite, women like myself have to struggle to avoid retaliation

Don't believe that the CMS cares one bit about the truth, they don't! HMRc have been blocked from using powers that help discover the truth by the DWP who effectively run the CMS. They are only interested achieving votes by reducing child poverty figures come what may!!!! It is also not about limited resources, ask yourself why they spend hours on the phone but can't make one single call to help discover the truth, to a passport office for example. This system has been designed to rip off the British public!

Even at its highest award it's 12% (fair enough more for more children )of the NRP's income, I would hardly say that's a rip off. But that's my opinion.

You are correct however the Police aren't interested in this. I reported my ex for this under the serious crimes act 'coercive control', possibly because I am a man I was not taken seriously. Police tried to palm me off to HMRC, who palmed me off to the CMS, who as you know, don't care. I am not finally having a tribunal but hold little hope of any justice, despite the CMS action meaning I will never now own my own home and my sons will be poorer because of this.

we are going through the exact same thing at the moment.
It horrendous how much stress it puts on your relationship. My husands x wife (divorced in 2018), suddenly put in a false claim out of nowhere to CMS in December 2024, stating we do not ever have his son. We have him every other week Friday to Monday and 50% of all holidays and any extra my husband can offer. we both work full time, and my husband is away with work often. His son is his priority and he will always come first.
He has always paid their Mutually agreed child support on time and in full. Never having involved the CSM previously.His son never goes without. On top of the child support my husband additionally pays his son extra money. It pays for school meals, days out in holidays, x box games, school clubs, uniforms, pocket money, phone bill etc etc (he's almost a little too spoiled if i am honest, but that's over compensation since their separation in 2017).
she is forever sending him round in clothes / shoes that do not fit anymore, so we then have to go out and buy additional things.
Her claim was submitted to CMS, just at the time my husband got a small promotion at work and she had split up with her partner. We would not mind paying the etra if we knew it was actually being spent on him. But so far she has had a Holiday to Mexico on her own in May, bought a new car and had cosmetic surgery in Holland to her eyelids to increase her followers on tiktock!!! And telling her son she cannot afford to pay for a holiday for the two of them this year. Every time she is child free, she is out on the town, drinking, spending money on designer clothes and associating herself with drug smoking girls.
The three of us are due to have our annual holiday in a few weeks. We take him during school holiday and pay the over inflated cost and she always took him during term time to get it cheaper. yet she would not allow us to do the same thing.
As part of the divorce, my husband paid Off her mortgage to ensure that their son would always have a place to live. She owns 49% of the house and their son owns 51%.
However, she denies this and let her son and ex partner believe that she only rents the property. She is a true piece of work and CMS do not take any of our appeal into consideration. We have hard evidence that we do in fact have him stay with us. which includes family testimonials, photos, direct texts to the ex-wife where she agrees dates and times for collection and drop off’s etc. All they say is pay for mediation at £250 per session, where she does not have to pay and can refuse to attend. Then look at paying a further £2,000 for court proceedings to start.