AIBU to consider regular payments from DP (my kids dad) as child maintenance - even though we're still together?

[mummatoots]

DP and I are still together, but keep separate finances. (He is a financial mess.)

The house we live in is owned (and mortgaged) solely by me.

We have two young children together.

He pays me £500 per month - and with this I pay for everything related to housing, and also clothes, classes, haircuts, etc - anything else the kids need.

He tends to do supermarket shopping as well as this.

Would you class this as effectively child maintenance, albeit in an informal arrangement?

Or, in your view, can you only receive child maintenance if separated?

I ask because I'm looking at moving house, and if I do class this as informal child maintenance (easily evidenced with a few months payments on bank statements,) it is counted within affordability calculations, so helps my application. It's a real payment which I receive regularly from my kids dad towards their living costs, so I'm not making anything up and I think it should count - but I'm not sure if I'm correct in classing it as such, and suddenly have doubts re: mortgage fraud etc!

I've checked the CMS calculator, and if we were to separate and I were to have the kids full time, with his salary I'd be due £532 per month.

Interested in the mumsnet verdict.

You need to tell your mortgage company he is living in your home. He may have a claim on it.

If your mortgage broker says you can include it as income I wouldn't bother asking for opinions here tbh - and I bet you're wishing you hadn't now.

I have more than a curiosity, trust me 😩

But I'm ignoring it at the minute, as for the purposes of me moving house and our kids, the end result is he has tons of debt and I can't count on him as an equal partner financially at the moment to take on a joint mortgage and joint household costs.

It's still pretty raw, and there are plenty of conversations yet to be had between us.

His salary has increased a lot in the past 2-3 years. I think most of the debt is a snowball from before that, when he earned much less and it was harder to live month to month. It may have been gambling at one point, though I don't really think so.

And I definitely don't believe he does gamble now, and definitely no drugs. But he has been in an IVA, so any debt he's taken on since then has been at ridiculous interest rates for poor credit.

So I think he's been ridiculously stupid in his financial decisions, been continually trying to take out consolidation loans with more horrendous interest then making things worse in the long term - he now pays about £1500 per month in repayments.

“Without including this £500 amount that I receive from him as CM on a mortgage application, it looks like I'm raising two young kids with just my salary.”

You will have to declare on your mortgage application that he lives there. The lender wants to know if there are any other adults resident there, because it can affect the lender’s claim on the property.

Of course, the lender might assume the child maintenance comes from a third party, unless his name is on the transfers on your bank statements.

the end result is he has tons of debt and I can't count on him as an equal partner financially at the moment to take on a joint mortgage and joint household costs.

Sorry to repeat OP but surely the end result is what you can comfortably afford in mortgage, and all outgoings/repayments without the threat of repossession if your DP were to leave and stop paying the CM.
£500 is a pretty big loss if reliant on it.

Does child support obtained through the Child Maintenance Service not count?

It’s not been court ordered but it is administered by the government with pretty hefty sanctions in the case of non-compliance.

I don’t know the ins and outs of if you can or not but I think my main concern would be that a bigger mortgage is only available with the £500 a month being taken into account y…..IF you were to split up tomorrow or he lost his job could you comfortably afford to live and pay your mortgage without his £500 contribution each month, food shops and any other bits he may cover? CMS could take a while to get set up and even then it’s not guaranteed. His finances sound a complete mess too.

I think I’d go for the more affordable mortgage that I could manage completely alone.

It does count, but might depend on your lender's particular rules. I have just had a mortgage approved and for CM to count in my affordability I had to show proof of CMS calculation and bank statements showing the payments arriving.

It isn't child maintenance, it's his share of the household expenses, when she moves without him, conveniently, he will have to find somewhere else to live so his 'affordability' will be considerably less!

When I got a mortgage solo my partner was moving in with me at the same time, we just couldn’t get a mortgage if his name was on it. Even though he is paying 50% of mortgage and bills I could class anything he sent me as income. He also had to sign some declarations that he would have no interest in the house if we split. However morally I would 100% split anything but legally he has no ground due to what he was asked to sign

Your updates on this man just get worse and worse.
Why are you with him?
Why did you have children with a man with this track record?
It's baffling to be honest.

He's repaying debt at £1500 a month.
He spends silly amounts on designer clothes and kit for his son.
He has a long history of debt but you don't seem to know how/where/why.

And now he has 2 children with you and his sole contribution to them and you is £500 a month.

Even now, he clearly can't handle money if he's spending large amounts on his son yet he's still hugely in debt.

Why don't you make this relationship the priority over trying to move to another house?

Either ending it or insisting he gets professional help (counselling/therapy) for his unhealthy relationship with money.

His money issues are like an alcoholic or drug addict- he can't stop spending.

You would only be entitled to claim CMS from him if you were in a position such as you are living together whilst going through a divorce or legal separation. It would be the same situation as couples living together and claiming benefits. He buys food as a separate payment for your household and therefore pays an expense towards your house and presumably you also live together as a couple would if they were married? You can’t realistically in good faith claim that this is just for child maintenance purposes as it’s simply not true by what you have said. I’m assuming from your household income that you’re not claiming any means tested benefits but there would be a similar criteria to test for eligibility for that as your mortgage provider. There is a chance therefore that this could be classed as Fraud. Have you declared to the mortgage provider that he lives in your house? The best thing to do is be upfront and honest about it with them.

Credit ratings are personal. They are not linked to addresses or anyone living with you. As long as they don’t share finances or any joint credit agreements, OP is fine. If bailiffs turn up on the doorstep all OP has to do is provide proof that their finances are separate and that she is the sole owner of the house.

This would only apply if he could prove a ‘beneficial interest’ - usually by proving he has contributed towards deposit, mortgage payments, or renovations/improvements. Unless you’re married and divorcing, generally whoever is listed on the deeds is the legal owner and gets the house. The only other way he might be able to claim a share is if he can prove he and OP intended to own it jointly, regardless of what the title deeds show. Nevertheless I think if I were OP I would be getting advice from a lawyer about drawing up an agreement to protect her interests given that he’s run up debt without her knowledge.

I'd get rid of this person from your life based on the debt issues and recurring issues.
I'd also personally wouldn't put myself in such a tight squeeze where I'd rely on that money from him fornthe new mortgage. What if he lost his job or decided to not pay you. I've seen men drag these things out for a long time and 1 month missed morgage payment, then another won't put you in a good position.
I'm not sure who you spoke to but this sounds like an almost identical case that my mate went through and she too thought she would be entitled to alot more, but with the child staying at the dads half the week she didjt get anything like the amount as he was providing his child with food, electricity, clothing and proof of financing half the time.

I wasn't quite expecting this level of pile on over the question of categorising income in a mortgage application, if I'm completely honest.

But it appears you're not taking his money issues seriously.

The situation is very serious and not just about what to put on a form.

It's suggesting you step back and look hard at the future you're likely to have with a man who's not showing signs of changing.

He's previously been in an IVA, and then got clear of it all and then racked up a ton of debt again, which I'm still deciding if I can get over or not - as this was done in secret.

Does that not matter to you?

Posters are trying to help you. It's not possible to separate out the reasons for the form query and what lies behind it.

@GrumpyOldGran

"Why have you had children with this man?"

Is harsh and unhelpful.

I did not know the extent of these issues when I had my children, and there is a lot more to it with young kids involved than just ending things.

And I'm not prioritising a fancy house over focussing on my relationship - I need to move for schooling for my kids, hence me putting that first, solo, while trying to figure out our relationship issues separately.

@GrumpyOldGran And I've clearly stated in the post you've actually quoted, that I'm not sure if I can get over it.

The problem with this is that you are drip feeding info.

This is the first time in all these pages you've said you need to move for schooling. But that doesn't really change the issue of his £500 or his long term debt.

I appreciate you think the comments are harsh but from an outsider's point of view, it does beg the question why you've accepted this long term issue with money.

He's not reliable and as everyone has said there is no way you should rely on his money for any future house purchase.

He's your partner who shares household expenses. That's not CM which is for couples who are separated or divorcing and usually living apart.

Indeed!

So it would be madness to buy somewhere where his £500 was necessary to pay for it. Even if you split up he can wriggle out of CM.

Mumsnet is full of mums chasing men who have gone AWOL with CM payments.

It’s not child maintenance though is it? It’s his contribution to his living costs in the household, like any other couple.

You may want to call it CM, but it’s not. That’s for separated couples.

@GrumpyOldGran For the purposes of my original question, it surely doesn't matter why I need or want to move. I'm telling you why it's an issue for me now in response to you telling me to focus on my relationship rather than moving house - which is not at all the point of this thread.

I've said he has credit issues that are a separate thing that I'm still dealing with, aside from this.

I don't need the £500 month to month to cover the mortgage / bills, so if he suddenly stopped paying it, I wouldn't be defaulting. And I'd certainly be claiming something formally through CMS.

But as a single applicant for a mortgage, which they stress check to death, it makes a big difference to the total borrowing amount I'm eligible for if this income is counted.

No @McSpoot, that's not what I meant. If they were to separate in the future then she woukd be able to secure this same level of income through legal means (CSA or court). It's guaranteed income...as guaranteed as income from a job anyway.

Well, the straightforward answer is that you can't.
It's money he contributes to the family .

It's not CM.