Child Benefit Rival Claim Ex Partner Earning Loads!!!!!

[ProlongedAffair]

Me and my ex share 50/50 of our two children, it’s not court ordered but has been in place for the past few years. A few months ago I put in a claim for CMS and was awarded it, they see me as the primary carer because I get both children’s child benefits. I also discovered my ex is earning a 6 figure salary.

Last week I got a letter from child benefit saying that he is challenging my claim. I said to the lady that he earns too much to claim and I suspect he’s only claiming so he can try to get out of CMS. She told me that because he has the children for half the time and child benefit isn’t means tested, the likelihood is they will award child benefit one each! Surely that can’t be correct, can anyone advise who has been through their rival claims process?? He will then be able to claim CMS from me!!

You'd have thought that the 2x CB plus £300 a month would be reasonable recompense for the occasional bit of extra admin that OP imagines she does. But apparently not.

Exactly! Filling out school forms! How many school forms do you get in a year?! Surely it's countable on one hand?!

@RadioWhatsNew he refused so they’ve been taking it from his wages

Oh my god your poor poor ex. How humiliating for him. I hope he wins every single penny back. I would have gone totally nuclear if I was him.

Do you have money set aside in case the CMS tribunal orders you to repay it. As you may know this is a possibility..

Hopefully the repayment she owes her ex will be taken directly from her wages. I feel so sorry for her ex

Be prepared to have to repay it.

Unless OP lied on the CMS forms, which there has been no indication she did, then it’s pretty vindictive to hope her wages get docked.

And yet you wonder why he will no longer communicate directly with you.

Absolute madness

Yes because if he pays direct to you and then proves you claimed fraudently..he would have to try and claim back via small claims court.
But by having it taken by CSA from his wages. This means that the CSA have to do the leg work on recouping the over payment.

@ProlongedAffair what a mess. Have you put aside what he's been paying in CMS? And are you determined to press ahead with the CMS claim? Do you intend to defend the court claim?

You really need to prepare yourself that you aren't going to win in court. The judge won't look into the past, they'll look at the period used to calculate the CMS claim up until now.

Unfortunately for you the judge won't care that you do more admin or make more appointments because you're registered with the children's GP. Those alone don't mean you provide additional care to your ex.

They'll look at time spent with both parents including overnights and they'll likely look at how the children's care is split at the moment in terms of money where again unfortunately for you it appears your ex contributes more financially.

You're facing your ex asking for the CMS to be repaid and could ask court to add interest and enforcement of repayments if you don't agree.

If you continue to push that you do more care because of some extra forms and GP appointments then I wouldn't be surprised if your ex asks court to have him noted as the primary residence and changes school and GP address to his own address or at the very least does this for 1 of the children and you are left with the other.

Are you able to manage financially with the loss of 1 child benefit? What about manage if your ex also stops the voluntary contribution he was making and you aren't awarded any CMS?

They may consider stuff like who buys their clothes, who drives them to school or clubs, who pays for extracurricular stuff.

He pays more though. He will easily end up paying the same or less than now by just refusing to pay for things he currently covers. Like their mobile phone bills and other regular and one off expenses he currently pays all of. He might choose not to pay for private health care anymore and just pay 50% of any health care costs leaving the rest to you

he will choose to pay half only and you’ll end up worse off than you are now.
cutting off your nose to spite your face springs to mind.

and just pay 50% of any health care costs leaving the rest to you

You said this sort of thing before. The children will be covered by the NHS, there is no need for her to pay half of private health care (whether that is half the policy cost or half of any self-pay on a private test or whatever).

If the father takes a child to a private consultant, he will have to give either the insurer's authorisation code or his credit card (often both!) - no clinic is going to accept 'here's their mother's address, send her a bill for half of it'

Is this actually real?!!!
You are NOT the primary parent OP. It is equal. Bollocks to if you fill more forms in or not. You have the children 50/50 so you both pay to raise them when they are with you. He pays for half of everything and you still think he owes you CM?
This can’t be real, surely?!

OP is really buggered then, because the ex pays for all of this 🤣.

OP when you get a court date, please tell us the date, time and location. I pray there is a public gallery, because I need to see this unfold in person!

Because I still maintain I do more admin than he does and my name is on more documentation like the GP and dentist.

You know that admin and documentation is not the same as parenting, right?

If he’s had more overnights then you are very lucky he’s not claiming maintenance from you for both children

I think the OP might be getting confused between child maintenance and spousal maintenance. She is of course entitled to neither.

OP is your ex earns a lot more than you, that’s not your concern. He can (and by the sounds of it, does already) pay for extra things for them as he sees fit.

Could everybody please stop posting so that the thread doesn't end before we get the CMS update.

No, because 182, is still less than 50%

I think this is an unfortunate flaw in the CMS calculator - you tell it half the time, but it puts that down as 175 to 182 nights, out of 365/366. If the split is truly 50/50 (not technically possible except on a leap year I suppose), then the CMS calculator is redundant and there should be zero child maintenance. As pointed out by others, the legislation does state that, and the issue is that the CMS calculator doesn't have an exact 50/50 option. Probably because they've assumed someone wouldn't use it in that scenario.

Because OP's ex has (somewhat understandabky, given the circumstances) refused to pay the incorrectly calculated CMS amount, he'll now be paying the 20% surcharge and op will be receiving less as well. Unfortunately CMS only listens to the claimant parent, they ignore all details provided by the paying parent. So they've taken the OP on her word that she has the DC for 175 to 184 nights per year, and not 50/50. The only way the CMS will listen to the other parent is if they have a court order for child contact. Which will be precisely why he's now going to court (a further, considerable expense to him) to get a peice of paper that states he has true 50/50.

It's shocking how stubborn some people can be when it comes to co parenting with an ex, and this thread proves it. OP has proverbially cut off her nose here.

It's astonishing, isn't it? I'd have killed to have had a co-parenting relationship half as effective as what OP had. And she blew it up because of simple greed.

Indeed, OP is coming across as very grabby. Such a shame to have ruined a good coparenting relationship, but it's done now.

Are the criteria for child benefit rival claims and CMS day-to-day care decisions similar? Given HMRC have split the child benefit, is it unlikely the CMS tribunal would make the opposite decision (e.g. I am the primary carer)?