Fucking fuming - child maintenance review

[aremenreallysuchcunts]

Got child maintenance review today. DC dad declared he earned £13,248 last financial year. He claims he works 6 days a week and is always late picking dc up due to work and works every weekend even the Saturdays he has dc. He owes £1254 in arrears via the cms and £2500 from before I applied to the cms (obviously I have written that off) so now I get the princely sum of £29.30 a week but not before cms have taken their 4%.
is this a joke? How do men like this have no shame? I know there is nothing to be done I am just venting. I have never included his money in my budget thank god but that doesn’t mean I don’t need it! I work full time and I work hard but why do men think this is ok? Why do the girlfriends think this is ok? Why do the father’s parents think this is ok? I have 3 boys and no way would I be congratulating them on avoiding maintenance.
Oh, and he’s a plasterer 🤣
Fucking patriarchy.

Depending on how much you want to rock the boat I'd be tempted to tell him you've told CMS about the other kids to see his reaction 😂

His parents are mid 70s. Both retired. Live in local authority housing (or housing association) 3 bedrooms

Maybe she is working now? She wasn’t in January and hasn’t for at least 8 years.

Honestly I am thinking of saying to him ‘I’ve got the review and so much wrong with it including your declared earnings and ignoring your stepkids’ 🙈

Do you know what - when he was paying me directly he would tell me the choice was seeing dc or paying maintenance so a few times I said pay the maintenance at a later date because it is more important to see dc. I sent bags of food up with dc to try and help. Ex told me he was struggling with cost of having dc every other weekend and I believed him until his own dad inadvertently told me he doesn’t pay a penny when ex and ds stay with them on ex’s weekends - no food, no contribution to bills etc. That was when I went to CMS

His parents are mid 70s. Both retired. Live in local authority housing (or housing association) 3 bedrooms

If either of them get Attendance allowance I don't think there are any non-dependant deductions, so that's possible.

Also if they're getting UC the deduction is £90ish a month I believe. Depending on the amounts elsewhere it's very possibly worth his while paying them that to cover it.

If he's classed as homeless and just using their address that would also see no deduction.

Maybe she is working now? She wasn’t in January and hasn’t for at least 8 years.

I'd say if the two likely options are that shes working and they've just chosen not to claim the reduction, or that they've not claimed it because he's not registered there then my money would be on the latter.

It's disgusting what they get away with and it's been this way for years. My mum was a single parent with a cms claim for me and my sister, we're now in our 30's and she's never seen a penny. When my sister reached 18 he owed my mum 87k and they closed the claim, he'd managed to avoid paying a penny by moving out of the country and living it up in Thailand, Bermuda and Dubai for years. Things need to change but I can't see it anytime soon.

I don’t see a penny either …..3 young kids including a set of preschool twins so you can imagine the child care costs alone. CMS said they “couldn’t confirm his address” and that was that.
You should be able to claim against savings (I know he has some) inheritance and pensions and the cases should never be closed and children should be able to claim against a deceased estate because but it won’t ever happen because we still live in a misogynistic and patriarchal governed society

@bunniesonaboat@disappointedconfused
fucking dusgraceful!
I can see why it hard to get maintenance out of men who have moved abroad- anyone have any ideas on how to tackle that one?

I agree that savings etc should be taken into account rather than just declared income

Sometimes REMO cases get money more efficiently (depending on the country) than CMS.

They can take money from savings as a one off, it's a rarely used power though.

I keep seeing newspaper articles about the declining birth rate, pompous journalist blokes telling us all it's down to the cost of living/can't afford a house/climate emergency worries/too many avocados.

Well, it's not is it? Much more simple than that. Young women are looking at the women around them and their child-rearing experiences and saying "that looks horrendous, I'll give that a swerve thanks"

The more we all know about these awful men, the fewer babies are born. Might write to my MP...

For absent fathers that go abroad,you can go down the REMO route In my experience, it has been an absolute ball ache! 4 years in and the have only just served court papers on him. They are so far behind due to Covid it sometimes takes months for them to answer your emails. You cant ring them. Only email.
I have honestly nearly given up, but I'm so far down the line now I need to carry on.

Well I hope this is the case to be honest regarding the REMO route.Anything would be a bonus!! In my experience I had to fill a form in for the Spanish authorities declaring my earnings. Not sure why that is, but I hope it goes in my favour ( I don't earn much)and they wipe the floor with him!!.

Spoke to ex - he says maybe he forgot to declare everything but will speak to his accountant 🙈 and also confirmed his gf doesn’t work and has never worked in the 8 years he has known her. Her youngest dc are 11 and dont live with her. Maybe she has very good reason not to work. He confirmed he contributes to their household and then says ‘I don’t want to say much more incase the taxman is listening’ 🤦🏽‍♀️

Maybe he forgot 😂😂

Well people who earn 13k a year tend not to need accountants so that's an amusing maybe.

Hopefully he'll sort out your maintenance at least now you've questioned him - sounds like he doesn't want you reporting anything so hopefully you'll have what you're due soon!

Perhaps we need some carefully selected high profile women to do a campaign along the lines of "I have X dc, they went without £X from their father because he didn't pay the CMS they were entitled to". No need to name the father but it focuses on who really loses out and leaves him having to defend his actions privately/publicly.

If only that were true.

When they shrug and make excuses and then refuse to discuss it further are you going to pay it for him? Nope

Thankfully neither of my son’s would be this kind of dead beat father. I certainly wouldn’t be overlooking it or pretending it wasn’t happening if it did happen.

If only that were true.

When they shrug and make excuses and then refuse to discuss it further are you going to pay it for him? Nope

Hopefully that poster will be like my exes parents.

They were giving ex and his sister some money after ex-MIL inherited some from her father.

They refused to give ex any until he showed them a receipt covering his unpaid maintenance. In the end they gave me what he owed me and said they'd keep giving me money every month taking it off what they were giving him. And they did until he started paying regularly.

As it stands atm they've written him out of their will and his share is going directly to his children as they've basically disowned him for neglecting his kids (he had several more after ours and did the same).

If more parents took such a hard line over it that it would really help the cause.

How's it going, OP?

Not the op but I feel like posting again as I have an update. CMS honoured my ex’s mandatory reconsideration so have now said he needs to pay… wait for it… £7 a week plus 20% fee for moving to collect and pay. I’ll get £6.51 after they take my 4% fee off.

He’s missed the first payment already. Imagine not wanting to pay a grand total of £6.51 to your own kids…

Cheeky bastards aren't they. I don't know how they can sleep at night , I really don't.
This happened with my friends ex. He was 'paying' a similar amount a week, whilst out on the piss every night ,and another bloke was bringing up his child (very well I might add). They've no shame .

Jesus @cadburyegg that's terrible. I'm sorry. Wild that such a low amount is permitted.

Thanks for the comments and solidarity it really does help.

I worked out today that if one of my children went to live with their dad, by law I’d have to pay HIM maintenance despite a) him not paying maintenance ages for either child for ages and b) the other child still living with me!! It wouldn’t cancel out because he doesn’t earn enough 🤣🤣

I realised as well he is on a student loan which is probably how he is managing to survive on a supposed earned salary of £5700 but student loans aren’t considered income.

It's frustating that loans don't count, or that he isn't forced to work a bit more. You as the primary parent don't have that luxury. Even a deferral would be better than a years long vacation from supporting your kids.