Help! ExH CMS Appeal - Tribunal writing to me

[WillHeEverStop]

Posting here for traffic. I can't sleep thinking about this and going through all the documents.

It's also kind of urgent.

I have a letter from HM Courts and Tribunal Service. I have been listed as a named party in an appeal case brought by ExH against CMS (& myself), as the other party.

ExH had written to CMS to reduce his child maintenance payments. His request was rejected- reason: he is earning more now, not less. He appealed their decision citing SIPP contibutions, personal pension contributions, 25% tolerance threshold and wrong total taxable income figure used. Again CMS rejected request- reason: stated income does not breach HMRC 25% tolerance threshold for variation. He appealed, it has gone to HMCTS.

I was sent all documents of the appeal. I thought I was copied in as per recipient of the child maintenance and CMS would respond to HMCTS. (They have access to his financial income, they calculate what his child maintenance should be, they have rejected his requests). But i have received 3 further letters from HMCTS asking me to respond and I was given a 4 week deadline, else hearing would proceed without my input. The deadline is almost up.

Anyone had experience with this? What am i expected to respond?

A bit of background, jic it is relevant.
ExH is self-employed. And even with creative accounting he earns really well.
Like most people, with increased cost of living, I have continually made cuts to make ends meet. 2 DC and I have a strict budget to make ends meet.
He is able to contribute into a personal pension and self invested personal pension, i have not been able to do that. Since we split, he has bought a home and is now buying a second home (i think he has already bought it). We rent.

There is a lot more background but I don't think has any bearing to this particular situation.

I would appreciate advice, from anyone who has any experience of this.
I am not sure what my role is here. I do not have access to his financial records. What do I write in my response?

Ring HMCTS and ask?

You need to respond to this - this is your chance!

have you any evidence about his lifestyle not matching what he’s saying - ie flash car, big house, holidays etc?

Include everything, your income, how you use the child maintenance; give any and all evidence you can provide. It doesn’t need to be fancy language or anything, just give your side of the story and how important it is to you that the child maintenance doesn’t reduce. Maybe use Chat GPT to help you polish it?

Include everything, your income, how you use the child maintenance
Thos os totally irrelevant. It comes down to one thing and one only: have CMS applied the law correctly in calculating the maintenance due.

It is manly for cms to defend the case. What you can do is see if there is any evidence you can provide to support CMS. It's not about showing how his lifestyle doesn't balance with what income he declares, unless YOU want to raise a counterclaim. It's whether you have any evidence that his income has NOT reduced by 25% or that CMS have applied the correct rule to the calculations.

I agree with. 'if it's not clear what they expect ring up and ask'. Sending 10 pages of irrelevant stuff and not sending what they want/need would not be good. Or if you really don't want to ring can you just respond to each item in the documents you were sent, a sentence or so on each. Maybe a final paragraph saying how difficult it would be for you to manage with less money coming in. He's trying to amass a fantastic pension by paying less for his kids, lovely man.

He's trying to amass a fantastic pension by paying less for his kids, lovely man

That's a big assumption you are making there. Nothing from OPs post indicates that is definitely the case.

Maybe it pays a couple of £100 in maintenance whilst putting £1000 in an already good pension pot.

Or he could be paying £1,000 in maintenance already and only had advice from a financial advisor recently that unless he tops his pension, he will not be able to survive much on what he has so far.

Thanks, everyone.
Varying advice, much like my mind tbh.

@Snaffle76 , the letter says it has enclosed a 'hearing enquiry form for you to complete and return'.
The hearing enquiry form enclosed is one already filled by ExH.
Even though it has my name on the very first page which is a cover sheet, the entire letter reads as if addressing the person the person making the appeal, in this case ExH.

This is what i was thinking. It is mainly CMS to defend the case.
I have no evidence of his income, nothing to support CMS case.

Just write back to them with the form with a covering letter saying exh has lodged this appeal, and that you do not support it. That you have no reason to disagree with CMS's calculations.

I probably would call them first as well.

@BadgernTheGarden , you are right about what a 'lovely' man he is.
That is a whole other thread.

I did ring HMCTS, after being on hold for over 35minutes I got passed around to a couple of different departments and also put on hold for a while then cut off.

I know it makes sense to ring them, I will ring them again.

If the for has already been filled in by ex, maybe they are asking for you to respond to what he has written. I would reply pretty much what you’ve said in your first post, that with cost of living, how you are struggling with the amount of CMS he currently pays, you cannot afford a pension, and if you have definite knowledge of his house purchases, car purchases, holidays etc then you should advise the Court, so they can look into it. If they don’t have details, then they only have his say. Get it done today urgently.

What work does he do? Does he advertise his service? Website? If he’s a limited company does he appear on the Companies House website? Where is his house, how much did it cost? Same for the second house.
Give the Court as much information you can about him. Build the picture for them.

Upxate: We are awaiting a court date.

I called HMCTS, the gentleman I spoke to said to provide every bit of evidence why the courts should not rule in favour of ExH. He said submit pictures of his house, car, evidence of his income, holidays, anything! He said that is what he has seen others do.
I wasn't sure about the advice, so called back after a few days, got a different gentleman who gave similar advice.

In the meantime, i had an appointment with a solicitor for something else related to divorce. I mentioned the appeal/child maintenance/HMCTS, the solicitor said let CMS handle it. It's nothing to do with you.

I will update with how things proceed, what i did & didn't do and the outcome of these actions and the results from of the hearing.
This may be helpful to someone else. There is very little out there about this issue from my position in the whole thing.

Hi op thank you for updates, I’d be interested in outcome. I’m in similiar position with my ex h taking cms to tribunal, I think you may have not received the correct form from the tribunal service. I was named & asked to respond on their form. All they wanted from me was to know if I wanted to attend a hearing (no thanks please leave me out of it) & if I needed confidentiality (nope) , they sent in a separate letter the documents you described cover letter telling me I had to respond & the completed form & accompanying nonsense from ex h.

I couldn’t really find any information about this situation online so am grateful for your posts.

I hope you & your children get best possible outcome.