Ex trying to reclaim money from child

[Preeel]

18 months ago my ex went back to university to train to be a teacher. During that time period, he was technically ‘unemployed’ (he did receive a grant, but that’s irrelevant in CMS’ view). As such, the child maintenance calculator reduced his payment to £0. His father, my child’s grandfather, then got involved and said he would continue to pay £50 a week in maintenance on behalf of his son as it wasn’t right that our child wasn’t supported. This money was paid via the grandfather to my ex, then he would transfer it to me.

My ex is finally employed and the maintenance calculator has said he needs to pay £100 a week. However, my ex is now claiming that the CMS should subtract all of the money that his father paid over the 18 months, therefore reducing his sum of £100 a week. It’s almost £4,000. I disagree as this was never the agreement, and I was never told that essentially I would need to pay this money back. It was a gentleman’s agreement if you like between the three of us to make sure our child continued to be supported.

AIBU or has my ex got a case to claim this money back?

I suppose it is technically correct, that his father made outright gifts to him, which he used to make voluntary payments. But I can't imagine this outcome is what his father had in mind, so he is the key. If I was him I'd declare it a loan and call it in to pass on to OP

Sorry, my misunderstanding, I was working it out per month! Unfortunately I don't think you will get a clear answer here because it really depends on the CMS. Arguably he has a paper trail of paying £200 a month when he needed to pay nothing but that doesn't necessarily mean that the CMS will count all of that as deductions from future payments. It just depends I'm afraid.

Haha! Maths was never my strong point tbh.

Sorry absolutely no advice but what a shit dad and what a shit system.

How awful that they can reduce future payments based on previous voluntary payments.

I am shocked!!! What a horrid man!!

I'm also baffled as to why CMS are concerned with previous payments as this is about point of claim? I didn't think calculations could be back dated

See him in court!

All I can say is, I hate the thought of my kids being taught by a man who would try to claw back £50 a week gifted by his own dad to support his own kid. What a shit.

You will need to disagree that he paid £4,000. However, quite how you are going to prove the money originally came from your exes Dad, I don't know. You need your ex FIL to provide bank statements, showing the regular amount going into his son's account. Not sure if your ex FIL would cooperate with this, because he runs the risk of upsetting his son. Without some kind of proof, you may be stuffed. Your ex isn't going to volunteer to show the CMS bank statements showing the money coming into his account from his Dad's.

You really begrudges paying towards his son doesn’t he? I really hope it’s not possible for him to get it back, it’s gross he would even try, but I do remember reading about someone else where the father successfully offset it. I don’t know why that would be allowed. Surely voluntary payments are just that, they shouldn’t take away from compulsory payments.

Call his bluff and say you'll arrange to pay grandfather back directly if that's what he wants. It has no bearing on CMS going forward.

@Preeel you're right to speak to the grandfather as I do believe your t**t of an ex may get away with this otherwise. My DP is RP and we had a similar situation where arrears had accrued with CMS due to his ex not paying what she should. She managed to completely confuse the CMS by paying just small amounts weekly that came to 10% of what she should have paid, then she was investigated for not declaring an increase in her income, so whole case was put on hold by which time the annual review went through and missed payments from previous year were wiped! One of her relatives was in discussions with my DP over this and realised she had underpaid so lent her the money to pay it back. She then told the CMS later that she'd overpaid and got it knocked off future payments. My DP appealed but got nowhere. Honestly CMS is a joke. I really hope there's karma for those NRP who try everything to get out of paying as they are a disgrace.

What a disgusting p.o.s. Your poor boy having that for a dad, men like him sicken me. I really hope you can get this sorted but even if he has to pay £50 a week for 18 months the amount goes back up to £100 after the period so the horrible turd only gets away with it for 18 months.

Next he'll be asking for grandpa's contribution back that he made to his son's health care provider. His dad will disinherit him if he's not careful!

And this piece of excrement is now a teacher? I'd be very tempted to tell him you'll share this knowledge with the local community if he doesn't buck his ideas up.

It must be infuriating for you Op.

I'm steaming reading it!

It's disgusting that he can ask for that to be taken into consideration because he paid when he didn't "have to".

Commendable that he has retrained, but also shit that that can mean he pays nothing.

So many exes that hate the mothers of their kids so much that they begrudge them everything.

Even though it's usually fuck all in terms of costs.

Can't you ask granddad for a letter and bank statements proving this money came from him? Hopefully just talking to GD who can talk to his son will settle all this. He should feel ashamed of himself the poor excuse of a man and a father.

Surely that depends what the grandfather intended? On the one hand, he might think his son should now pay full CMS. On the other, he might think what he was doing was tiding the OP over and if the OP carries on receiving the same amount until the "overpayment" is cleared he might be fine with that.

The only thing I am concerned about is that I may have inadvertently got myself in the middle of some sort of loan situation. If I have, that was never clear to me. I will be calling grandfather once I finish work to find out, but I’m also worried I’m putting him in some sort of awkward position.

No advice, but sorry you're dealing with a shit of a father.

Yes, this.

Hope you’ve pointed out to him what a low life disgusting specimen of a father he is. And told his dad about his son’s proposal!

Oh please tell his lovely father what he is up to!

What a disgusting man

keep fighting him - if the CSA had any sense they would see that his father paid in the £50 and then it was transferred out to you

an update would be great

I had this and CMS were very clear with my ex that if he made voluntary payments over what they had calculated, he couldn’t ask for the money back. They explained that they set a minimum but if he chose to pay more, then he could. It would not however, entitle him to a discount in the future.

Contact your MP for help with this. Explain that CMS set it at a zero sum, but they chose to pay above that. They cannot now reclaim that money. They could if CMS got the calculation wrong or took the money from his account in error but that didn’t happen. He knew the zero figure and he chose to make payments anyway. He can’t claim it back.

That’s what CMS told me at least, a few years ago.

Did he pay the money to you directly or pay CMS to pay you?

So he's trying to reclaim money he hasn't himself paid to you ?

Cheeky shit

He sounds so thoughtful and caring of children, especially his own, bet he'll make a great teacher 🫤