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.

Courts, sigh. :-(

How is it 70 a week if he's only seeing them every other week? Or is that it averaged out?

That’s what it costs him. It’s nowhere near what he’ll actually end up with. It comes down to a mileage allowance averaged out over the year, and then a minimum weekly threshold of £10 is applied, so he only gets the excess after another deduction according to the % maintenance he pays.

Yep he’s an a*sehole.
How far away does he live? £70 a week is a lot

Sadly I think you only recourse is to check what is stated can be claimed as mileage and toll rates, and then evidence his journey yourself. Also if he only has care once a fortnight, this should be reflective of that too. It’s been a while since my husband went through all of this with his ex. In his case we were paying for phones, school trips, clothes and holidays, and regularly bailing out missed mortgage payments (never to be seen again), so we did seek a travel allowance deduction, as CMS don’t take that into account.

is he self employed or paye? Sadly he can throw extra money into pension pot reduce his income. If you know what time of year he may get paid bonus’s etc, then ensure you ask for a re-evaluation of income at that time of year.

From what I remember despite tghe fact that my ex moved away and point blank refused to have anything to do with DS's transport while I could claim minimal travel expenses that would mean that I could not claim a reduction for the nights he spent with me

I think it’s totally fair if the resident parent moves away, in this case I haven’t and it’s him that’s chosen to live where he is.

I’m sorry you both went through that, it sounds rough.

I have never asked him for anything, all he pays is the maintenance, which I didn’t even claim for a significant portion of our child’s life. I pay for all other activities, like swimming lessons, football, and I imagine it will be that way going forward. I even have to send a bag with clothes, wipes, sunscreen, hat, spare pants, pjs etc as he refuses to provide these and says that it’s what he pays for! I know this isn’t true but I can’t see my child go without because of the way he is. Only mentioned the suncream as he previously sent them back burnt and said he wasn’t providing sunscreen and I should supply it.

Ps, given he’s not seeing your child weekly, I would start with that as a challenge back (has to be costs that exceed £10 per week).

plus work out the mileage (but assume will be there and back twice). Base that cost on Hmrc mileage rate.

also make sure that he is declaring income from rentals, dividends and investments. X

Bloody hell if he let his child burn I’d raise it a child protection issue. I would send him the evidence that CMS is to cover costs whilst in your care and he has to provide whilst in his care and only send sun cream from now on.

That is surely evidence of child neglect in his care. I would be keeping evidence of that or reporting it to get sole custody.

You would be amazed, stroked horrified as to how high the threshold has to be to withdraw contact from father’s
Excuse after excuse after excuse is made for them.

All to the child’s detriment.

My ex did this. Moved 400 miles away, left me to do all the work then sought, and got, a variation to cover his travel expenses for the high days and holidays he does have her. I’m thinking of challenging the ongoing need for it now as our child is older and travels there and back alone so costs are greatly reduced.

Except he is not taking money from his child. He is paying for the fuel, tyres, oil, tolls etc. out of his own wage. He has asked CMS to allow him to pay these essential costs needed for his children to spend time with both parents BEFORE they run their calculation for maintenance. The outcome will be maintenance will reduce by about a fiver. It's a token of acknowledgement of the costs that non-resident parents have to pay.

The alternative is resident parents agree to meet half way. I can assure you that will cost more than a fiver at the distances stated though.

Maybe he had to move there because it's what he could afford. Maybe it's nearer to his work. Maybe it's nearer to family support.

Heaven forbid Dad wants a bit of extra money to buy his child a pizza or an ice cream during his time. What a deadbeat he must be!!!

Because this is the way CMS works.

He will have been asked to calculate his average weekly travel costs.

CMS is calculated on weekly income.

Heaven forbid Dad wants a bit of extra money to buy his child a pizza or an ice cream during his time. What a deadbeat he must be!!!

Well EOW isn’t great is it ?

It's not 2 journeys every other week though unless travel is being shared 50:50. It's 2 round trip journeys EOW which works out as 8 single journeys per month.

It's from his home to child's home, from child's home to his home on a Friday night. Then from his home to child's home on a Sunday, and from child's home back to his home. X2 per month.

That probably does amount to a fair amount of fuel if he lives 35 miles away.

Many, many, many men have no say in the matter. Until more mothers are prepared to switch roles and become the non-resident parent, EOW and half the school holidays is what Dads get.

Well if what OP says is true and he wanted nothing to do with his child for a long time and then had to be forced to pay maintenance, EOW is what I’d expect.

You only have to look on MN threads to realise there are a lot of non resident dads doing the bare minimum despite mum wanting and asking for more input.

I think the way this works is that Dad says:” I can’t do weekdays because I work”. Mum says “If you have every weekend I am doing all the weekday drudge with no downtime with the kids” So then it’s every other weekend for the dad because he won’t countenance changing his working life to accommodate childcare, either paid or provided by himself.

Yes, that's true. But here's an example of what could be going on:

Her version of the story:

He's a deadbead. He doesn't care. He doesn't see his children enough. His contact is sporadic. His payments are unreliable. He's loaded so should be doing more. He abandoned them. I'll make sure they know what he's like.

His story:

Following the divorce, I've had to move back in with my parents. I'm in the process of renting a flat, but it's time consuming and costly. I'm working every spare hour and paying my ex what I can while also trying to set up the new place so my children can stay. I work shifts but due to the conflict between me and my ex, unfortunately she makes plans with the children during my weekends off and makes them available at the times I have to work. She seems to revel in telling everyone what a deadbeat I am. I'm worried what she's saying to the children. I'm struggling at the moment but I'm sure things will get better soon. I want to be a good dad.

So bloody what?
I would’ve tripled my salary if I’d have been able to get myself a one bedroom flat in London when I got divorced but unfortunately I could afford a three bedroom house somewhere else with a garden that was necessary for my children to live
So there was probably about 800 grand worth of lost opportunity down the Swanee there that could’ve bought a lot of pizza and a lot of ice cream because I’m a responsible parent and what was right for me wasn’t right for my children
We also couldn’t live in the catchment area for their school anymore so I used to spend 45 minutes in the car with stressed out children whacking each other with bags and guitars and double bases to ensure they could continue their education. That was an additional cost. I had to endure as the resident parent.
He bought himself a mini.
Not sure what that says about him but as a father of Four it wasn’t a suitable vehicle but at least if they crashed nobody was gonna move. They were wedged in like actual sardines EOW. And they’d put up with it from him if I’d have tried that there would’ve been World War III

Yes, go for it. As soon as I learned about his travel costs claim I would have claimed the nursery day cost. Why shouldn’t he pay it?

It is between him and the Nursery. She needs to withdraw the Monday from her schedule that she pays for and remove that availability for him.
If he wants to use Nursery, he has to pay for it but it’s no good sending the bill to the Solicitor, it’ll go straight in the bin

You’re absolutely right, it’s actually four round trips per month because each time he has to travel there and back to collect the child, and again to drop them off.

CMS would ask him to work out his weekly mileage, so if OP is correct and it’s 100 mile round trip four times a month, this would work out at 100 miles a week. CMS would apply the current standard mileage rate (I’ve used standard rather than the lower rate since OP says he drives an SUV) which works out at £18 per week, or £936 per year, which CMS would deduct from his gross annual income.

Assuming the standard 12% liability for one child, the cost to him would be reduced by about £2.16 per week, or £9.36 per month.