AIBU or my ex? Child maintenance

[MoneyWoe]

Me and my ex share our child equally, half the time each. He pays for some things, like our child’s weekly swimming sessions, I pay for others, like dinner money. So this part is equal but I would say I do most of the organising for things. Example, I will organise our child’s school trips like filling in the forms and he will give me half the money. This has worked but recently I have got fed up of having to message him asking for half of the money for things all the time, so I put in an application for child maintenance. I didn’t realise this at the time but he is on a very large salary and the money it says he owes is hundreds a month, way more than when he was just paying half of things. He is saying he is going to argue this with them as we share our child equally, and according to him, in these sorts of equal cases he doesn’t need to pay any maintenance. He said he will take it to court if he has to. He’s also said I might have to pay any money back if the child maintenance service agrees with him.

AIBU to expect him to pay the maintenance and is he correct in that he won’t need to pay any maintenance in our situation?

I called an organisation of solicitors yesterday that specialises in CMS claims. They advised me that it doesn’t matter about income, unless the other parent earns above £156k, then I could get a financial order. They also said in cases of equal shared care there isn’t a maintenance due and advised again a financial order, but my ex doesn’t reach the threshold. I still think I do more care than my ex but I don’t think it’s worth it for the battle in court, evidence gathering etc.

I’ll be cancelling the claim.

But I think the damage to the co parenting arrangement is done- whether you cancel the claim or not.

So… what we all said all along?

No, lots of people on this thread were saying I was owed the maintenance and should claim it

The majority were not saying this. Count the poster names, if you wish.

Ah you're just bullshitting. CMS do not take maintenance direct from paying parents salary unless direct pay, then collect and pay has failed.
Go and see a Dr if you need to get your kicks making nonsense threads on the internet.

Direct pay did fail because he refused to pay it so they set it up to take it from him!

He refused as he didn’t owe it. And how is your relationship with him going to be moving forward?

It takes months to sort a deduction of earnings. I have a lot of experience of cms and their slow systems

I put the claim in before Christmas, it’s just taken this long to set it all up

You could have saved yourself all this hassle with five minutes of Googling OP. I hope your ex doesn’t hold it against you though he’d be perfectly entitled to.

There will be a lot of “told you so” now, but I think this was sensible. Get actual advice, and act on it. I hope the relationship can recover from this.

half of mumsnet posts advice based on what they either think is true, or what they want to be true. It’s hard to differentiate that from the actual truth sometimes.

But maybe get this advice before putting in a claim?

He sounds like a tight fisted father. Proceed with child maintenance.

In what way?

Based on what?

Because I think limiting the spend on a child to what the poorer parent can afford is tight fisted.

OP has mentioned nothing about feeling limited in the spend on her joint child, unless I missed it?

The father’s reaction to her going for more maintenance was that “they have him equally” so should split child care costs equally. I do get that when they earn along similar lines but when one is a higher earner then they are arguing the amounts spent on a child should be limited to what the poorer parent can afford.

Which I see as tight fisted.

Poorer parent … she may not have earned as much as her husband but £62,000 income is not poor in my book! They have 50/50 shared custody .. filling in a few forms for school is really not difficult 🤷🏻‍♀️

So you think that despite being separated, and him paying for the childcare on his time (half the time half the bill) he should also contribute towards her childcare bill? Really?

So he should give the Op more money so she csn do limitless activities with the son on her week if he doesn't he's tight fisted ? Right oh
Can you imagine the outrage of the sex,s were reveresd
"My ex dh earns less than me he wants me to give him extra money so he can do more with our child on his week " posters would be falling over themselves calling him a CF etc.

If the 65k/110k are pre-tax, the difference post tax is even smaller.
With these salaries and 50% shared arrangement I don’t see why you believe he should pay anything to you. Just split the items (ie he pays and organises music lessons, you do the sports ones) but for the rest (uniform, food) you each handle it independently when it is your week.

After tax they earn 4k vs 6k a month. I don’t believe this means a completely different lifestyle - which is when the richer parent would be expected to pay maintenance to compensate - as it stands they can both afford days out, holidays etc. Not equal, but not in a completely different league.

Good that you got the proper advice.

I don't think that CMS was the right way to address the issue you describe but that doesn't mean there isn't an issue there.

Might it be worth reflecting on what practical things might make the admin side of things easier, and suggesting a solution to ex?

It could be something like both keeping track of what you pay for trips and comparing at certain intervals to even it out? For example