AIBU to think child maintenance rules seem unfair in this situation?

[Anon1216]

My son is 7 and I broke up with his dad 6 years ago. In that time I have received £60 in total from his dad. I have never asked for a penny.

A month or 2 ago I submitted a child maintenance claim. I’m meant to receive my first payment… £112, in a week. Today I received an email from CMS saying he is now in receipt of benefits and therefore owes nothing. He works and earns £25k, unless he has quit/lost his job but he was recently promoted!

AIBU to think what a joke? I’ve received £60 in 6 years and the moment I ask for something towards our son he does this. I’m surprised he’s entitled to anything!

Why are you having a go at the op, she's the one actually providing for her child. No-one should gave to make a formal claim to make a parent support their child. Im sure the op is busy enough working and earning twice her exes salary and doing all the childcare without wallowing on admin which we all know is often fruitless. Give her a break and direct your ire at this useless man and system

£7.50 a week is all im entitled to.
Its bullshit that covers nothing for a teen lad. Meanwhile im out here working 2 jobs to provide.
Let's not even get into the £6000 + im supposed to be entitled to in back pay. More chance of me shitting gold bars than getting 1p of that money.

We were good friends until recently. I still speak to his mum and I lived with him so I know exactly what he’s like. Plus child maintenance told me most of what I have put on here!

Trying to ensure my ex has a roof over his head so that my son doesn’t have a homeless dad is most definitely putting my son’s interests first. However, he’s since had a promotion, sees our son one day a month less, things are getting more costly and there becomes a point he’s just taking advantage.

Same thing happened to me, except in my case he quit his job, signed on and continued working cash in hand with his boss who he was friends with. Still fuming about but it. It's ridiculously unfair. It's like the woman is punished for leaving.

There's no reason really why they can't take it directly out of a guy's bank account. They do it for bills etc.

I decided to let it go and use my anger do my best for my kid and I. I decided to ignore any self doubt, throw off any social stigma and go hell for leather. It's been definitely worth it. My kids nearly an adult now. And the same men that used to make comments are noticing that we're slowly becoming more successful than they are. They don't seem to like me now, oh well

At some point after your lad turns 18 you’ll likely get a letter from CMS about cancelling the arrears.

It will read like they’re informing you they’re going to do it, as if you have no choice, but please contact them and say no. Tell them you want the arrears to remain on record even if they will make no effort to collect them after your child ages out. They don’t let people know that can be done.

it means it the one who owes you comes into money the debt is still there and can be enforced. It can also be enforced if they died, I worked on two cases where men had made no provision for their children when they died and the money owed to their mother was actually all them and their mum would see (all were teens still).

It also absolutely enrages them when they call up to complain and are told that no, the debt is not being cancelled. Importantly it also stays on CMS’s figures of uncollected maintenance and refuses to allow them to continue massaging the figures

There are many sites out there with info to help NRP’s “minimise their CMS costs”. All nicely dressing up the fact they are helping them get away with paying as little as possible toward their children.

Often the more they have the worse they are about paying.

I was awarded a tenner a week for one kid. Didn't get it though as he decided to sign on. Would make you mad and it's happening to so many women out there. Keep fighting girls 💪

He shouldn't have tried to have kids if he didn't want them. Some people are really cheeky, like the dad who signed away his rights to the kid and then decided he wanted to be involved years later-but without paying a penny (think it was on Reddit). Disgusting he expected other people to pay for his kid.
In your situation I'd seek legal advice.

Oh thanks for that. I had heard that it cancels at 18 I didn't realise you could say no. It should be paid its no different from any other debt.
I didnt make ds by myself I damn sure shouldnt be paying for him by myself.

So they’ll stop chasing the debt at 18, but the debt can absolutely remain on file.

It can’t be included in a bankruptcy so it enrages me that CMS habitually write it off. It makes the figures look better for them but absolutely does not benefit children or the RP

Doesn’t UK CS have an appeal process under ‘capacity to earn’? Aussie certainly does.

It is shit.

A month after my ex received his pay out from the house (I bought him out) he stopped paying weekly maintenance. He would send me odd amounts like £100 sometimes but nothing regular. Lots of promises of how he was trying to get more work. Nearly 3 years ago now and I don’t get anything. Just spent nearly £200 on secondary school uniform which I have saved up for months for and last weekend the kids came home from exh’s with £50 each holiday money (supposedly from grandparents) and ds1 came back with a series 7 Apple Watch which was apparently exh’s old one! I have a series 3 Apple Watch which I’ve had for 6 years 🥴 ex had the cheek to say he would buy ds1 some stationery for secondary school, aka a 75p pencil case from Tesco and a few biros.

I have been through the CMS and done all of the reconsiderations but they said that supposedly because he “overpaid” at some point (presumably when he was giving me £100 here and there) he doesn’t have to pay anything atm because his yearly salary is £5700 🤪 beyond hilarious.

What winds me up is that UC review my income every year to make sure that I don’t have undeclared jobs etc (fair enough) but there seems to be no system in place to ensure that NRPs actually work and contribute towards their children’s upkeep. But as the RP if I lost my job I’m sure the job centre would be on my case…

No, it’s perfectly legal to decide to earn nothing.

When I worked for CMS there was a man who was doing a very niche high earning job in his own company. On paper he resigned to be a SAHP and his partner, who had zero experience in this field, apparently took over (and customers were supposedly fine with this).

HMRC were the ones that caught him out in the end and they were only interested because he had an unpaid tax bill that he claimed he couldn’t pay as he was no longer working.

I saw a fair number of cases where the NRP swapped their high paying role with their lower paid partner, brother or father. Very obviously purely to lower their maintenance calculation in those cases

I appealed in my case. For the maintenance I was owed and the back pay. I told my solicitor off the record, that my ex husband was actually still working, but was now working cash in hand. My solicitor told me that the judge won't look at that without proof. I was asked by the judge in court where I expect him to get it when I disputed that I wasn't being awarded backpay..

My ex was actually mad at the time that I left our marriage. I had a young child to mind on my own also so I wasn't sure how to go about getting proof, was afraid to make him madder and had my hands full with a little one. We're doing much better now though!!

Wow. The Aussie one also doesn’t consider allegations, but simply look to see if the payer has left employment to a lower income stream, information which is available via tax returns and pay slips.

the only one I know of where it didn’t apply was the one who went on sick leave.