What’s the fair way to pay for this?

[huserrr]

Dd is starting at a private school next September. Fees are 30k a year including VAT.

ex pays me 890 in child maintenance (this is the minimum he is obligated to pay). He does often buy extras for DD but she never stays over with him as he is pretty much working all the time.

my career has suffered as a single parent. Ex is on around 100k and I am on 60k. Unlikely I will earn more now as my career has been affected massively by doing everything for dd on my own.

when it comes to paying school fees what’s fair? I suspect ex may suggest we split the fees and he reduces child maintenance as well. I am interested in thoughts before I have the conversation with him. For context he is usually reasonable about things in the end.

I guess I assumed OP was in the UK as she mentioned the fees with a ££££ sign.
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In all honesty, you can't make him pay any more than his child maintenance already is. If you want to use that money to pay towards school fees, then fair enough, but no court would force him to pay more just to fund private school.

I'm guessing future private school fees wasn't a condition of your divorce, otherwise you'd have mentioned it. And if you weren't married, then you've got even less leg to stand on.

Sorry, but you can't afford it.

But if he does agree to contribute, really the only fair thing is to go 50:50. Him earning more, or you earning less, isn't really any of the other parents business. Yes, it would be nice if he'd go 60:40, or even 65:35, but he's under no legal obligation to do so.

My advice is DO NOT DO IT. If you can’t afford it on your wage alone if needed. My friend learnt the hard way. Don’t do it

Her needs at home don't diminish because he's paying school fees.
Stand firm on the maintenance.
He should pay the school fees or you should agree to pay them proportionally based on income. if he wants her to go there (so he pays 2/3rds, roughly, and you pay 1/3 of everything school-related). Otherwise she goes to state school, end of.

Seriously, stay firm. And get it in WRITING or you will struggle with a 1 term notice to remove her should he renege on paying.

I think if you both made the decision, you should pay proportionate to your incomes and he should continue with maintenance at the same rate as before. Then you need to look at your finances. I think on your incomes you are cutting things very fine to pay for £30k a year in school fees.

Whatever you decide make sure it’s documented and that you are not the only parent on record with the school. I would actually want him to pay his share directly to the school in line with any agreement you have if at all possible. You do not want to find yourself in the position where you are having to pay then chase him for money.

You can’t afford to send DD to a £30k a year school unless you having savings of £150k plus, which I guess you could. But if you don’t then don’t send her.

How does that indicate she’s in England?

I don’t know if it’s possible to do this but if it is ….
I would make sure all the contracts for payments are in his nome if you can
then if you have to remove her short notice for whatever reason it will be him they chase for money not you

Oh for sure - not advocating for it at all - my children will absolutely not be boarding.

But there’s an income / costs equation here that isn’t really adding up - and 30k is a relatively expensive day school / inexpensive boarding - hard to tell!

I'd start by suggesting split by income %, him £18K, you £12K and you keep current maintenance (presumably this will have to fund all private school extras anyway - expensive uniform, hobbies, trips etc). If he really pushes back on this, you can drop to £15K each and you keep full maintenance. I'd push to keep full maintenance as that should go up if his income does.

My ex has just cut maintenance as his relationship has broken down so he is now paying 2 lots! Unbeknownst to him I just save it anyway as I foresaw something like this. I’d be shafted if I was paying my mortgage with it.

Did I mention England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland anywhere!?
another pp did but not me

The child maintenance he pays goes towards food mortgage, clothes, books, toys, after school activities etc. so should in no way be impacted by these fees. These fees are over and above general 'maintenance' so you shouldn't even countenance changing this, tell him to get to fuck if he suggests this.

Then the school fees should be split proportionate to your respective incomes.

It's possible to get school fees paid outside of the requirement to pay maintenance using the courts. However, I don't know if that's just at the point of separation and divorce or if you could still apply now. It is worth looking into before you speak with him - might be worth a free half hour with a solicitor or even just pay for some advice to be clear where you stand.

Agree that I think you are taking a risk no matter how you divide up the fees.

I'm sure lots of people 'love' a certain school and 'really want to send' their DC to St Splendids or whatever, but please factor in trips/uniforms/sports kit and equiptment / tickets for things and suchlike first. And then factor in your DH meeting someone new and suddenly deciding DD will be 'fine' at the local comp because new girlfriend wants to go on splashy holidays. It happens all the time

And especially because he doesn't have overnight care of DD he will be able to minimise and downplay the impact of pulling her out of school. He won't be dealing with the fallout.

If you are SUPER confident that you have a shit tonne of savings to see you through, go for it. But be careful of being single minded about it (especially in front of DD) until you have had the conversation with your DH and really thought about all the comments on this thread.

You could tell DH the figure that you can afford and say that if he doesn't want to make up the remainder, there will be no private school because you can't afford it(which is true). Of course he shouldn't reduce maintenance whatever he pays.

In a marriage you have no more guarantees about the future than anyone else. All your worst case scenarios equally apply to married couples.

And “joint” everything only happens so long as both parts of the married couple want to be married. Nobody, married or otherwise, knows what the next decade will bring.

Where she stands is that you cannot be legally compelled to pay private school fees.

You can plan more. Set up insurance. More likely to set up wills and lpa naming each other. Savings.

Playing devils advocate your career probably would have suffered had you remained together, someone’s usually does and it’s more than often the female. I think half and half is fair and he keeps paying his maintenance.

Really?
https://www.beyondlawgroup.co.uk/family/newsroom/can-i-force-my-ex-to-pay-school-fees/#:~:text=The%20court%20will%20have%20to,payment%20of%20the%20school%20fees.

Ex should pay maintenance as normal. This is for daily living costs.

School fees should be split pro rata based on your salaries.

Yes, but she would also have legally 'owned' half his income/savings etc.

You kind of do though. You’d likely have a life insurance policy which would cover the mortgage and similar at work. Admittedly that just covers death and serious illness not ‘deciding to cut funds’