Child Benefit Rival Claim Ex Partner Earning Loads!!!!! part 2

[ProlongedAffair]

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5294980-child-benefit-rival-claim-ex-partner-earning-loads?reply=144269354

I can’t write on the previous thread anymore, so I’ve created this one for people interested in the outcome of the CMS case. I’m committed to telling people what the outcome is regardless of whether it goes my way or not.

Like a brick wall…

I doubt your children moved out solely over this to be honest. You’re calling your ex a narcissist but all I can see from these posts is a woman who only thinks about herself and everyone and everything should bend to whatever she wants.

Well I obviously didn’t think my kids wouldn’t want to live with me anymore. I still believe the CMS need to update their policies about these 50/50 scenarios, why let me claim in the first place? Why tell me it’s not about overnights but who ‘does the most’? Why award me money then change their minds once child benefit was contested?

You still cannot take any responsibility for this.

You were told numerous times by numerous people - including myself who had worked for CMS - that you would fail and you ignored every person except those that encouraged you to go for it.

You should have looked into CMS legislation in close detail before rocking the boat with your very generous ex. That you did not know that CMS was fully dependent on CB was your fault. Entirely your fault.

I have spoken to them many times about this and the child benefit people too.

CMS told me that there is 50/50 overnights which means the non-primary parent gets a reduction of half in maintenance. Then there is who the CMS determine to be the primary carer. So you can have 50/50 overnights but if CMS decide you’re the main carer (based on stuff like doctors, dentists, who does more admin), you’re still entitled to maintenance. My ex disputed that I’m the primary carer, he said we’re equal carers and he shouldn’t pay anything and that’s why this whole dispute started and why he claimed the child benefits etc.

Op I'm sorry it's come to this, but as others have said you need to take time to reflect.
Realistically your teenagers will have picked up on something and they're entitled to have some information, if it's factual and age appropriate in terms of their understanding, it's not alienation. It would be unfair for him to pretend everything was great when they're capable of picking up that it isn't.

When you refer to feeling owed and doing the grunt work, I think if it had been the type of situation where ex disappeared and never paid or took care of them people would be more sympathetic, but that's not the case. You had them more, he paid what was fair at the time, and paid extra when he was in a position to.

At this point you risk your kids thinking you are only interested in them for the money. Please focus on making sure they know that's not the case, put this to one side and spend time with them.

Their policies are quite clear. And they advise they consider CB. CB gives the person claiming it access to other benefits.

Once again...

You asked CMS if you had a claim based on the grounds you had 50:50 AND both CB amounts for the children. If you had both CBs AND we doing 50:50 thats you having more.

HOWEVER your ex, is entitled to put in a rival claim. The success of that means your circumstances changed. Thats not CMSs fault. They cant anticipate your circs might change.

And he now has more that 50:50. Hes the one entitled to support now.

We ALL understand how you FEEL but your feelings aren't FACTS. The facts are you got more than 50:50 when it was - he had the kids 50%, he paid £300pm, you got 2x CH payments.

Did you ever stop to look at when this applies in reality though? As there will always be fluctuations about every day to day task for children and it's impossible to quantify so could never apply for 'standard' cases.
Exceptions would be situations such as when a child has a significant and enduring disability that means huge amounts of appointments, extra care and impact on ability to work.

No one in CMS was ever going to count up how many text messages and parent apps and letters you dealt with and award it proportionaly on that. The fact that you seem to 'count' it all it does sound like you see the care you give your children as transactional and something you resent, and if that's coming across on here you really need to think about what they might have picked up from you.

I am really struggling to understand the basis of your claim for maintenance. You initially said you had the children 50/50 but you were the primary carer which in itself doesn’t make sense but never mind.

But that’s not the case, your ex has DC1 80% and DC2 58%. He is very clearly the primary carer and you should absolutely not be getting child benefit or maintenance. If anything, you should be paying him maintenance! I really don’t understand why you submitted a claim to CMS in the first place??

Will you be paying him maintenance now?

@Shefliesonherownwings Greed.

It was greed, pure and simple. When it was 50:50 her ex was voluntarily paying her £300(?) a month plus she was getting 2x child benefit. Iirc she found out that he'd got a pay rise and decided that she deserved more.

In pursuit of that she put in a CMS based on dubious "facts" and which blind-sided her ex. That then destroyed what had been up until then a good and mutually beneficial cooperative co-parenting set up. He warned her that if she carried on being so self-centred and greedy he'd take the gloves off by stopping the voluntary payments, disputing the CMS claim and also applying for one of the CB payments.

Nevertheless OP was convinced she had right on her side and carried on. Unfortunately she didn't have the law on her side as one of the CB payments went to him which has scuppered her CMS claim. Plus he has, of course, stopped the voluntary payments and is now free to pursue OP for the other CB payments plus CMS.

It’s a massive shame it’s come to this. I have been split with my ex for 15yrs, and I never discussed things like maintenance / child support with my children. Despite their father paying none. Your ex should never have brought the children into this. In my experience the DC often end up coming back to their mother. Time will tell. In the meantime i’m sorry you’re in this boat.

Have you seen the Decision Makers' Guide?

"05047 In many cases, the need for this action will not arise, as most parents will accept the CMS
presumption that the person receiving CHB for the child is the person with primary responsibility for day
to day care.
05048 When deciding whether a person provides day to day care, DMs should consider the following

1. who does the child spend most of their time with when they are not at school, nursery or childcare
2. who pays for most of the child’s clothes and meals
3. who arranges and pays for any childcare costs
4. who is the usual contact for the child`s school and, or child-minder
5. whose GP and dentist is the child registered with and who arranges appointments and accompanies the child
6. who has the greatest involvement with the child`s recreational activities and is responsible for paying for them
7. who already receives any fnancial support for the child, such as benefts or local authority assistance."

I presume you feel that you ticked enough boxes?

Well now you have proven to yourself that you are not due cms and now you are not even 50/50 carer, in fact he has the kids 100% of the time so how much maintenance are you planning to offer him on top of the cb? As that according to you is the right thing to do. He is entitled to it after all.

I have had a few friends who's teens have gone to live with the other parent. After years of only seeing them every other weekend.
It does seem like something a lot like to do. Not always in a negative way. More in a get to know the other parents more.
They also often end up moving back eventually.
It does sound like you got a lot of bad advice.

All of the advice told her not to do it!!

I meant advice from real life places. Not the information she was given on mumsnet. I have not read the previous post but it sounds like she had the plan before she even posted on mumsnet about it .

I don't think the OP remotely got bad advice - I think the Op only listened to the parts of the advice she was given that backed her opinion that she was the primary carer and went with that.

For all she says CMS advised her incorrectly they will have been advising based on what she was telling them. Someone telling CMS they have the CB, they have the children more of the time, they do all of the work with the children regarding school, doctors, dentist etc will be told they're entitled to maintenance. However, that was simply the OP's interpretation of the situation based on historic timings rather than the reality at the time.

@Shefliesonherownwings others have explained it to you but OP also tried to leverage the fact that she did more than her ex previously in the decade or so before he changed his work schedule to have the DC on a 50/50 basis.

She has become entrenched in believing that he owes her from these previous years prior to 50/50, and took this action to try to compensate herself historically.

The mistake she made was the time difference technically, as by the time she tried to claim from him, he already had the kids 50/50.

She continued to pursue it believing he owed her money from the last 10 years and this was how she would recover it. This is why everyone told her not to do it, because it was out of date by this time, and that he would win based on what their situation is now.

She didn’t listen

It transpired he had been paying her £1000pm maintenance the entire time anyway, and when it went to 50/50 he was still paying it - just less than before at £300pm.

So she went after him for MORE money as she felt the reduction was too much. Following chasing him for more CMS, he applied for and won 1 x child benefits for their child leaving her with 1 (1 each). This angered her even more so she continued to pursue him and now here we are

Exactly !!

OK, but....

1. who does the child spend most of their time with when they are not at school, nursery or childcare - THIS WAS 50/50
2. who pays for most of the child’s clothes and meals - PRESUME MEALS WERE ALSO 50/50. CLOTHES MAY NOT HAVE BEEN
3. who arranges and pays for any childcare costs - NONE, AS DC ARE TEENAGERS
4. who is the usual contact for the child`s school and, or child-minder - PROBABLY OP
5. whose GP and dentist is the child registered with and who arranges appointments and accompanies the child - SEEMS OP DID A BIT MORE BUT XP DID THE PRIVATE MEDICAL SO MAYBE 60/40
6. who has the greatest involvement with the child`s recreational activities and is responsible for paying for them - SOUNDS LIKE BOTH PAID TOWARDS EG SCHOOL TRIPS SO 50/50
7. who already receives any fnancial support for the child, such as benefts or local authority assistance." - OP DID GET BOTH CB BUT ACTUALLY XP HAD EVERY RIGHT TO GET AT LEAST ONE OF THE CB ON A 50/50 CARE SPLIT

He’s got a case open for me but I haven’t paid anything because he said he didn’t want any money he was just opening it to protect himself!! I also don’t see why I should given I shouldered most of the costs and sacrificed my career for all those years whilst he was swanning off.

Have you actually read or taken in a single comment on your threads about this? At all?

They both seem to be on a hate train with my ex at the moment

I also don’t see why I should given I shouldered most of the costs and sacrificed my career for all those years whilst he was swanning off.

Because, for the 101st time, it goes on the situation NOW, not what happened in the past or on what seems fair or common sense to you.

The bald facts are, the kids now spend more than 50% of their time with him, so he is the RP, you are the NRP and he could very fairly claim maintenance.

Yes I get what people are saying to me but unless you’ve been in my situation you won’t understand the injustice of it all