Ex applied to deduct travel costs from child maintenance

[greentent86]

AIBU to be pissed, even though I know it’s technically allowed?

I live where I always have, with our child. I have never moved.

Ex lives a significant distance away now, his choice.

Has had sporadic involvement with our child since birth, now we have a court order that he has every other weekend.

Within days if the court order, he’s applied to CMS to vary the payment for “special expenses”… he’s claiming £70 a week in travel costs.

I do get a decent maintenance payment compared to many people, but a loss of over £300 a month is going to be very difficult. I work full time but my job isn’t well paid, and do all the day to day care of our child, pay for nursery etc.

Ex was financial controlling and harassed me over CMS for years, this all came out in court and was noted by the judge.

For what it’s worth, my ex is in a well paid job, has a house worth 7 figures, drives a large car worth 6 figures, has investment properties etc. he isn’t hard up.

I know there’s nothing I can do about it but AIBU to feel the system is really unfair on resident parents.

Yes, so he didn’t have much to do with our child for a significant period, wouldn’t willingly pay any maintenance. I had to go to CMS. When he started having overnights, he amount was already reduced based on that which is totally fair enough.

What a nasty vicious post against a woman who suffered domestic abuse.

Utterly shameful.
Reported.

I knew that and that’s why I left. But after him getting called out in court for his financial control etc I thought he might have realised his behaviour… but nope, as soon as we are out of the process and have a final order he starts up again…

FWIW, he hates the fact I went to CMS. He said in court multiple times that it proves I had our child for money. He also tried to say I use CMS to harass him. Thankfully a FOI request proved that the only times I have ever contacted CMS is obviously to open to claim, and to report when he had missed payments or paid the wrong amount.

who the fuck empties your bins, fills your Ocado order etc? Yes. all of those plebs in poor paying jobs.

OP, have you contacted Woman's aid?
Was their Coercive control?
Have you thought about reporting him to the police?
If nothing else, his next victim will see your report via Clare's Law.
Mind yourself.

Yep been there, done that years ago. Nothing ever came of reporting him to police. There was a fact find in family court, and there were findings made against him, however the court is “satisfied” that the final order “protects the child and the parent they reside with” under PD12J… so basically because it’s arranged so we don’t ever have face to face contact that’s all okay then and the court assumes he’s safe for our child too. Meanwhile it means I still have him in my life doing crap like this, I feel probably just to wind me up.

How many years ago?
Understanding of coercive control has progressed so much innthe past couple of years.
Scum like him don't change their colours, as can be seen from his recent behaviour.

Consider making a report if it was years ago.
No harm asking.

He’s too much of an arse to ever stop trying to control you. Perhaps send his nursery bill to him via his solicitor! He won’t ever pay but his solicitor receiving it will cost him money!

Is he paying minimum maintenance. I doubt he'll be allowed £70 a week travel expenses.

Back in the dim distant past I worked for the child support agency. I know things are slightly different now but basically this should still be the calculation:

When you travel by car, CMS use a flat rate of 15p per mile to work out your travel expenses. . So for example if your ex is travelling a 150 mile round trip twice a month that would be around £45 a month allowable expenses. That’s around £10.40 per week. There’s a £10 minimum threshold so the remaining 40p per week would be his allowable expenses, which would be reduced again by the percentage of maintenance he pays. So standard child maintenance for one child would mean his CMS liability would be reduced by 12% of that 45p figure - around 5p a week.

He would also have to provide proof of vehicle ownership (V5C), very clear proof of his contact with your DD and that the visits actually take place - court order or written agreement/log of dates - as well as proof of address and documents proving the distance between his home and your DD’s.

He could potentially claim for extraneous expenses such as toll roads, essential overnight expenses or other travel related expenses, but they would have to be deemed necessary.

That doesn’t happen anymore if the Solicitor hasn’t been instructed to open post by the X the Solicitor will put it in the bin they wont even respond

He won’t. It’s not a direct deduction. The mileage allowance is 15p a mile and he has to meet a threshold of £10 a week. At say, 150 mile round trip twice a month his CMS would be reduced by around 5p, based on minimum maintenance for one child.

CMS don’t use the HMRC cap. It’s a standard rate of 15p per mile, with a minimum threshold of £10 per week expenses. Unless there are other expenses deemed essential like toll roads, public transport costs for legs of the journey or overnight stays he’d be entitled to a reduction of about 5p a month based on minimum maintenance for one child.

Just send the nursery bill direct to him then 🤣 will super piss him off!

On a much, much smaller scale, we discovered that in addition to child support and uni costs, DH charged him money for “postage & handling”. While they were married, she had credit cards in his name that he didn’t know about. OP’s ex is working the system to be a petty twat.

Why he doesn’t have to pay it
I think a big mistake I made looking back as I should’ve got the nursery bill in both names and insisted on joint liability and made him pay the nursery Direct on top of the CMS obviously

I have just logged on to CMS online account to do a response to this as requested, and I can see at the same time he’s also applied to reduce maintenance payments (change of income) but it’s been rejected… can’t see anything further…

I don’t even know how I would go about it. We both have PR now, I guess I could ask nursery to bill him for his days and see what reaction it gets… there’s nothing anywhere that says I have to pay it and I always have. When the interim order was put in place, the judge did query it and said it needed careful consideration but at the time I was so exhausted I said let’s just sort it out for the final order (as didn’t 100% know what would happen at the time and I was worried about more conflict re finances as we’d had in the past). Anyway, totally forgot about it at court doing the final order…

If the judge ordered him to travel you may be able to challenge this. My ex tried to do this but as it was court ordered he pay for half the costs he wasn't able to reduce his maintenance. I had to provide a copy of the part of the order that stated he was to pay so I imagine an order saying they are responsible for travel may have a similar impact?

What do you mean bill for his days? How is that not happening already ?
On the days that he has the child how he takes care of it is his business. It’s nothing to do with you. You need to get onto that tomorrow.

It it court ordered that he collects and drops off to nursery. Or school when dc starts. School holidays are covered by a third party. We can’t have any contact.

So for example, if he’s collecting at 9am on a Friday morning, I still pay for that whole day. If he decides to drop off at 3pm on a Monday to nursery, I’ve still paid for that whole day.

My ex did this. Had to provide receipts for ages. I think he still does get asked for receipts every so often. Gives him a 60p deduction every month. Petty.

My ex did this, had the nerve to move 1.5 hours one way away. Then deduct travel
costs alongside a deduction for the new girlfriend’s menagerie of children 🫠

If I remember they deduct 13p per mile, and that comes off his gross income. Then maintenance is worked out from there, it actually ends up being not much at all. Pennies really.

He’ll have to provide evidence of his miles traveled and fuel costs forever and he’ll be spot checked. And of course you have the right to challenge it.

So in that example that you give Friday is your day in theory but I would talk to the nursery and just say look this lunatic tried to kill me. I need a safe space to do a handover. Can you just charge me for an hour? Cause he’s gonna pick her up at 9 o’clock you shouldn’t be paying the whole day and the nursery managers should facilitate that for you. Even half a day would be helpful to reduce your bill.
However Monday is his day and he needs to pay for that day just basically remove it from your contract you don’t need it.
And then if he wants to drop her at 9 am or 3 pm that’s up to him
Yeah, that might save you a few quid over the course of a year