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.

How should it be done then because when I was getting divorced and trying to make it part of the financial arrangement, I was told that wasn’t something that the family court deal with
When I quoted section one of the children’s act I was told that hadn’t been applicable for 30 years
You just go round and round in circles with these things until eventually you run out of money. In my experience.

I sympathise with the huge disparity but I think you are making a huge mistake doing this. A better option would be to talk to him and ask if a solution could be found - et perhaps he takes on the full burden of things like.school uniform or clubs.

You also.dont.say what, if any, asset splits happened at the time of the divorce. Did you benefit t all there?

It may very well make sense when CMS is involved. They use CB as a blunt tool for calculations. He may not be entitled to keep the £20 a week CB, but if it reduces his liability to maintenance by hundreds a month it’ll make sense for him.

CMS is payable even when 50/50 if therr is a significant difference in earnings, however, it is hard to prove and get. It relies mostly on it being proven to be 50/50 on paper but the claimant doing more of the actual parenting, i.e. doctor/dentist appointments, opticians etc whilst the other oarent doesn't do those things.

From what you have posted, he does all of that so I am not sure a tribunal will uphold your claim.

If your salary is as you state and 60k, then you should be repaying part if not all of the CB so why does it matter if he puts a claim in?

Honestly, you sound incredibly greedy

Try and follow this.

CMS base their decision on who claims the child benefit.

Both of them are entitled to claim the child benefit. He let her claim all of it as she earns less. She then used it to claim CMS.

She isn’t actually entitled to both child benefit claims because he is entitled to one. It does not matter if he can’t actually get the money due to his salary - that has nothing to do with his entitlement to have his name attached to one of the child benefit claims.

She is using his goodwill against him. He let her claim both child benefits, and she has then used that as evidence to get the CMS. He is fixing it by rightfully claiming child benefit for one of the children. That is what happens in 50/50 cases with two kids. They will award one child benefit to each parent. This means she cannot then claim CMS for that child.

She isn’t entitled to CMS. She only got it awarded because he allowed her to claim both child benefits.

The difference in their salaries is not enough that a court would order maintenance to crate parity in the households.

It does make sense for him to claim.

The child benefit claim being in her name is what allowed her to claim CMS. If he gets his legally entitled claim to the child benefit sorted then she cannot use that to claim CMS against him. It very much does make sense.

He has them 50% of the time and pays for 50% of their food, clothing, school supplies etc. Of course he shouldn’t have to pay CM and I’m amazed CMS insist he does… You can’t demand money from him simply because he earns more, it’s there for NRP’s to pay their fair share but neither of you could be defined as a NRP since it’s 50/50.

If your ex earned more than the CMS limit the family court should have sorted it (as they do in high profile cases with footballers and the likes). Below the limit (currently 156k) CMS will deal.

There is a stupid loophole that one year and a day after the order is given either party can go to CMS and request they deal with it. This is abused by wealthy NRP’s as it means their ex has to take them back to court again for a new order. I dealt with one woman whose ex had done it every year for 8 years in a row, and legally he was allowed.

The ex shouldn't have to supplement his ex's household just because he earns higher. He pays 50% of his children's costs and also has them 50% of the time...as he should

It's called child maintenance. Not supporting your ex maintenance. Parents should be contributing to the whole of a child's needs proportionate to income. Sure, a disparity in incomes will likely mean different sized properties, older vehicles, more or less luxurious holidays. But chdren are a joint enterprise, not necessarily s 50/50 one.

Nobody seems to really have any understanding or inclination.
They just wear you down and hope you give up actually what we should do is just give them the kids let them have them
We can be the Disney parents that weekend and then maybe we’d be on 156 grand if we were unencumbered

Particularly if a mother has sacrificed career progress, hours to support said children in earlier years (and part of the agreement within the marriage)

If a higher earner in a together partnership demanded a 50/50 split of child related costs, there would be cries of LTB. No idea this is considered greed when a relationship breaks down

I think this is a very fair point, although he did already offer to pay more than half of childcare related costs and op wants cms to get even more than that — implies that the cms would be supporting her costs as well.

I actually think it’s fair far an ex spouse to still support their exs standard of living, at least in some cases. Before marriage I able to support myself financially to a good standard and could have supported 2 kids alone with effort. Due to decisions made jointly during marriage I’m no longer in that position. If we split I would have to move very far away to a much cheaper area, even then I’d have a harder time supporting myself. These were joint decisions. Why should he be able to opt out of the consequences whenever he likes and leave me to bear them alone? I think it’s fair that he share the financial implications long term (especially as those same decisions have hugely supported his career so he’s in a better earning position than he was before). I don’t at all resent any of this, they’re the best choices for our family, but only under the assumption that we act as a single unit. I don’t think he should have the option to push all the negatives onto me alone whenever he wants to.

All of that is a case for spousal maintenance, however. It’s not appropriate to use child maintenance payments to improve your own financial position or standard of living. But if that’s the only legal route possible… I can sympathize with why the op might want to try this.

As far as I know if you both have equal number of nights i.e 50/50 then CMS look to determine who is primary carer. You might need to Google this. So it is possible if the tribunal determine there is no primary carer then yes they could close your CMS case.
You may need to apply to the courts for top up maintenance as he is high earner as the £156k is the maximum income CMS can take into account.
Would it be possible to withdraw your CMS claim, ask him to leave you with the child benefit and discuss if he can contribute more seeing as though he earns over double your salary. If the Tribunal close your case you haven't lost anything

Child maintenance should be based on the costs of raising the children and the needs of the child. Once you separate or divorce, you shouldn't then benefit from the other parents income. Assuming your DC's needs were being met just fine, you now have another £800 per month, to spend on what? I'm not surprised he's pushing back. A case where an otherwise healthy co-parent relationship might have been messed up through greed.

Good luck @fixatedplanet

Youre not greedy. It’s not a race to the bottom bottom. CMS is a scandal of our times.. it’s shocking things are still shit for single parents and the societal expectation on single mothers is insane.. there is still no equality and even less if you are a single mother in 2026. Best of luck Xo

She is not a single parent. She is a very well supported co-parent on a good salary with an ex who pays his share of everything and offered to pay more. He also let her claim both set of child benefit despite her not actually being entitled to both. Then she did get greedy.

Well presumably the rule is to allow some equalisation of the children's standard of living in both homes.
I don't think you were wrong to pursue it if you could not agree it equitably.

I don’t think @fixatedplanet is coming back

I think she would be regarded as a single parent.
If you told someone you were a co-parent I think they'd assume some sort of non-romantic relationship under the same roof.

People tend to say lone parent when they have no support from the other parent (for whatever reason)

Isn't that all meant to be taken into account during the divorce? Pension, proportion of the home, assets etc.

Why should he have to pay maintenance if it’s 50/50 and he’s already paying for shared expenses? At £60k with a high earning co parent who pays more than his share already, your kids are very well provided for. You’re being greedy and suffering the consequences now. If he does end up paying maintenance don’t be surprised if he stops paying all shared expenses and you lose your good co-parenting relationship. And yes he might well be awarded CB.

When men talk about money grabbing exes, this is what they mean.

That simply isn’t true if we look at it as a cold hard Contract when I ended into the contract to have a child with this person and it was on the basis that we had such and such income
Now as a whole as a collective if that income dropped for either of us, then the other one would support the other one for the duration of the child rearing.
Equally, if it improves the person that should benefit from it is the child.
If you’re going to look at what the office of national statistics claims it cost costs to raise a child when you look at the Mortgage application for example example apparently we should all be able to manage it on three grand a year.
Does that mean that the CMS should be capped at £225 a month? No matter what their parents earn.
And remember that has to cover accommodation, water gas electric food transport hobbies clothes
Doing a lot of heavy lifting that child support calculation

I’m not sure why you thought you could get CM if it’s 50/50. My ex earns over £600k. We have 50/50 shared care and my solicitor made clear to me during the divorce that if I agreed to 50/50, no CM would be payable. Seems like this may have been an own goal for you. I’d try to discuss with your ex and agree to withdraw your application on the basis that he withdraws his application for the child benefit.

can absolutely hand on heart assure you that it isn’t

You should’ve got a better Solicitor