Ex disputing CMS and making rival Child Benefit claim in 50/50 care

[fixatedplanet]

Hi all,

I’m really struggling with this and could do with some advice.

We’ve had a proper 50/50 week-on/week-off arrangement for the last 4.5 years. The boys (14 and 11) split their time equally between us week on/week off and we’ve always split the costs of shared things 50/50. He does his bit when they’re with him and I do mine. It has been working fine but....

The issue is income. I earn around £60k and he earns well over the £156k threshold. Because of that, even though it’s 50/50, I applied to CMS for child maintenance so he pays his fair share (it comes out at the maximum rate, around £800 a month which is a 50% discount as he has them 7 nights out of 14). I thought that was reasonable as his salary is much higher and he should pay more than half.

He immediately challenged it with a Mandatory Reconsideration, which was rejected because I receive the Child Benefit (he gave it up due to the high income charge and then during divorce said I could have it which only seemed fair). Now he’s put in a rival Child Benefit claim for one of the children AND lodged a tribunal appeal with the CMS. He’s basically trying to get out of paying anything through CMS and I could lose some of the child benefit now!!!

We are completely 50/50. He does everything on his time and I do everything on mine. But because he earns more, he should contribute more and CMS should sort this I would have thought, I should not have to go to a tribunal.I have started to gather evidence to try and show that I do more so it gives me a good chance at the tribunal and I guess he is doing the same now. I am going to get a barrister to help out at the tribunal to try and prove I do more but he does stuff too so not sure if that will help me.

I’m worried he might actually get the Child Benefit (even though he can’t claim it himself because of the high income charge) and that the tribunal might side with him. Does he have any chance of winning that? It just doesn’t feel fair because he earns much more than me even though we share all the care equally. He did offer to cover all of the shared costs but I have said no and decided to go down the CMS route as that will be more money than simply covering the shared costs.

Has anyone been through this? Can he really do the rival Child Benefit thing and what are his chances? I guess he has lots of evidence to show that we share care equally and have done for several years but he cannot even claim it so I would miss out! And what are the chances at tribunal? Surely they will see my side of things? He has started to pay me the £800 a month now so I have had a few months payment so far so that is good at least but I am worried I might lose it or be told to give it back.

Thanks in advance.

Hi OP

What extra do you do / pay for that you think you're entitled to a lot more? What financial sacrifices ha e you made that you feel you should be compensated for?

I think my answer would be different if for example when you were together he encouraged you to give up a lucrative career that you've since struggled to get back in to. Or if one of your children has a ton of medical appointments in the working day, and you do all of these and you have had to take a flexible job to accommodate this. But if you're both working full time in the job you would have had anyway then I don't really see why he should be paying you, and I'd think twice before destroying the relationship between you

Of course not. And, in his time, I expect he does. What he doesn't have to do is pay the OP so she can also parent like so eone who earns 156k a year. Because she doesn't.

The children on that thread were teenagers. Old enough to vote with their feet where a court of law wouldn’t force them to 50/50 with a parent they don’t want to.

Also that op would have to go to court and since she seemed to genuinely only care about being the victim she won’t.

So she lost custody in the sense of the children cut her off.

If you were shouldering more child related costs, then I would agree you should get more money. But the fact he was willing to split all costs half and half? That was fair. You wanting more money is just for you and grabby.

That is an urban myth like the Loch Ness monster. Many a man has found himself volunteering for 50-50 thinking it would reduce his liability and being shocked to find it didn’t.

This reads more like the girlfriend of the Dad tbh

You're not a couple so the only reason I can think of for you to be entitled to some of his money in these circumstances is if you sacrificed your career for child care when you were together. I don't know if that is ever considered or what the formula for working it out might be?

As you’re 50:50 I’m not quite sure why you think “his fair share” amounts to what will end up being a lot more than half of the total costs of raising the kids? Surely in that situation, “his fair share” is what their costs and expenses are whilst they’re with him?

Unless there’s a drip feed that you still pay for all their clothes, uniform, school trips, hobbies etc - then I could understand there being a contribution from him to you, just to even that out.

Getting the CB would be fair enough if you hadn’t claimed for the maintenance (as he wouldn’t get any actual money from them, as he earns too much), but if that CB claim means you look like the resident parent and gives rise to a maintenance claim looking as though it’s owing, I can see why he’s claimed!

You’re right in the sense that the court won’t enforce contact at that age but they will draw up a lives with arrangement up to the age of 16.

And that’s reflected in the child support.
If it was a genuine poster, it sounds as if she was very unlucky

The financial order in divorce would address this.

How would it not reduce his liability? Its usually calculated on the number of nights with each parent. Even if so.ethis payable at the end of that, it will take into account the time he's with them.

It doesn’t. The children can’t be living in a Council estate with Mum and then Kensington High Street with Dad, there needs to be some parity in standard of living.
And believe me, my ex would be fucking delighted if I was having the children in a hostel and then a week later they were driving round to his country sprawl but luckily the Law doesn’t work that way.
Given that most women get completely screwed over when it comes to divide in the assets the ongoing financial support is the court’s way of evening things up a bit

Assuming there was a divorce and that she could afford legal representation at the time to stop her having the floor wiped with her

She wasn’t unlucky. She was greedy and it blew up in her face (and she had ignored countless warnings on and off line, as well as multiple olive branches by her ex).

Her ex was paying her £300 a month despite the fact he had the kids more than her and was paying other expenses (and that’s her words). She heard he got a payrise, went to CMS and it backfired massively financially. Then her bad mouthing of the father backfired as the teens chose to live with him full time. No court would force two teens to move back in with a parent in those circumstances.

That doesn’t matter. If they are truely 50/50 he’s entitled to one regardless. So she shouldn’t be claiming two.

Who knows most of what’s made up online made up completely so I don’t consider that to be a legal precedent set

In high earning cases where one massively out earns the other courts (not CMS) will often order child maintenance so that the children have a relative parity in their lifestyle in both houses.

It’s not as simple as 50/50, or number of nights, when it’s a high value case.

It makes absolutely no difference. Child benefit do not take that into consideration. He is entitled to claim it and just forgo receiving the money. The reason he is entitled is for things like that - child benefit is often used for other agencies to decide who the resident parent is. When it’s 50/50 and only one child then they will go through every detail to decide who should have it. But with 2 kids, they always split it by awarding one claim to each parent. It absolutely does not matter what the parents earn.

The fact is that she is using the child benefit claim as evidence to make CMS award her money. He will be using that as his defence - because it isn’t fair. And he will be awarded one of the child benefit claims. His salary makes no difference.

Having worked for CMS everything she said was accurate in terms of how it would have worked in that situation with those figures.

this OP is different with a high earning ex. That’s a different kettle of fish, but shouldn’t be done through CMS.

@fixatedplanet to follow up on my original comment this is what AI said about my query and your situation. As others have said, you are on thin ice....
Your reply is thoughtful but slightly off-target — career sacrifice is more the domain of divorce financial settlement (already concluded) than CMS, which has its own rigid formula regardless of historical contributions.

Here's a more accurate read of the situation, and why she may indeed be walking into a mess:

The CMS position

CMS calculates maintenance based on the paying parent's income and the number of nights the child spends with each parent. At 7/14 nights (exactly 50/50), the standard reduction is 50%, which is what she's getting. CMS doesn't factor in the receiving parent's income at all — so her £60k is irrelevant to the formula. That part is working as intended from her perspective.

The Child Benefit problem

This is where it gets complicated for her. CMS uses Child Benefit receipt as a proxy for "primary carer" — whoever claims it is treated as the applicant with standing. Her ex can't personally benefit from Child Benefit due to the High Income Tax Charge, but he can make a rival claim to establish which household the child is primarily associated with for CMS purposes. If HMRC awards it to him (or splits it), her CMS claim for that child is weakened or lost entirely. HMRC looks at who the child "lives with" — in a genuine 50/50 arrangement, this is genuinely contestable.

The tribunal risk

She's essentially asking a tribunal to confirm she's the primary carer when she has explicitly described a 50/50 arrangement for 4.5 years, with both parties doing equal shares. Gathering "evidence I do more" when she's already stated he does his full share on his weeks is going to be a hard sell, and potentially embarrassing if it looks like manufactured retrospective evidence against a well-documented equal arrangement.

The core tension she's not acknowledging

She turned down his offer to split shared costs (which would have cost him less) in favour of CMS (which costs him more), because he earns more. That's her prerogative, but CMS wasn't designed to redistribute income between high-earning separated parents — it was designed to ensure children aren't left financially unsupported by an absent or lesser-involved parent. In a genuine 50/50 arrangement, the policy justification gets much murkier, which is probably why he's contesting it.

She may well end up with reduced or no CMS payments, potential repayment of months already received, and legal costs for a barrister — versus the shared-costs offer she declined. That's the backfire risk.

Others have said you may succeed in court on the basis of achieving parity of lifestyle. Sounds like you need legal advice.

Op needs a court order for payments due to his wage. Cms is just going to end up closing the case.