Child Maintenance-Should fathers on benefits pay more?

[CalmGreenWasp]

My ExP owns his home outright, receives in excess of £1,200/month in disability benefits and works cash in hand. His only outgoings are food and utility bills for himself. Is it fair that he only pays £7.00/week maintenance for our DD10? For context, I am a lone parent and own a mortgaged home. I slightly exceed the threshold for universal credit. My disposable household income after mortgage and bills equates to half his, but with two people to support. Is the system broke? Should disposable income be considered by CMS when paying parent is in receipt of benefits?

It’s for mental health problems as a result of drug addiction.

lucky you, my ex is on benefits and doesnt have to pay because he has “priority debts”

So that's £1 a day. What does he think that will buy?

He knows it won’t buy anything, and this is my punishment for leaving him

"Cut their goolies off" ?

I mean you may have little argument from me. However I feel society will disagree.

The problem here, is people with no money have no money.

PIP is there to enable them to work. Adaptions etc so they can get to work etc.

For many it makes work feasible which is a good thing but obviously some abuse the system. No system is completely infallible. Being in work is generally good for your well being / self esteem.

PIP is there to enable them to work. Adaptions etc so they can get to work etc

Is it ?

Is it really ?

I mean it could appeal to some....... 😳 But just ensuring that the penalties for non payment are in line with things like council tax, you get a real battering if you miss payments, bailiffs, attachment of earnings etc would start the process. CMS should be a priority payment/debt like council tax is imo.

Ok. You're conflating two issues.

CMS is calculated on your earned income. There is a flat rate if you are on benefits, but only if you have no earned income either.

If his entire income is £1200 benefits a month (what is this by the way because that's more than full level daily living component and mobility component of pip combined) then he will likely pay the £7.

If he still gets the pip, which as pp says, you can be a millionaire and claim it, but he earns £30k a year, he is liable to pay CMS on that full £30k (they might give a small allowance for pension deductions).

If he has rental income, or income from other assets then you can contest the calculation. As for a variation. Raise a high level complaint (in CMS this is called a dissatisfaction) and do not confirm you are satisfied with their dealings until the FIU is involved and pull him in for interview. Raise dissatisfactions against the FIU if they are dragging their feet. They start becoming very compliant with what you need to get that dissatisfaction off their case record.

So your issue is not the benefits. Your issue is the undeclared income that should all be liable to CMS. The difficulty is now proving it because it's cash in hand. Keep reporting to HMRC. On and on and on. Take photos of him on the roof. Report to pip fraud. Report it to your MP. They have a direct line to CMS and can put a fire up them.

I've just had over £40k arrears from my twat of an ex because they told him they would sell his house and sent it to court. After 6yrs of CMS doing utter fuck all, I found out about the MP angle and the dissatisfaction thing, and he was hauled in under threat of arrest to the FIU and my money was with me within a year.

What else do you think it is for?

Report him to hmrc with as much detail as you can.

He does have capital, he owns his home outright. If monies could be recovered from his Estate on death, this would cover child maintenance arrears. His house is worth about 400k

If you’re on benefits you have no business fathering a child. Clearly you cannot afford to support them adequately.

Primary residence is not capital for benefit purposes.

How about mothering them?
Are people on benefits (40% of UC claimants work) not allowed to have kids?

I agree about the system being broke. Those who don't pay have no meaningful sanction (bankruptcy or no passport would be options I would consider), and above all we are almost the European capital of cash in hand jobs. The latter is one of the incentives for people to come here in small boats.

Whatever the recipient needs ?

In this case it appears to be paying for him to be able to snort stuff up his nose

Maybe it should be?

But it can be sold to cover CMS arrears, as long as the arrears are a certain amount and they obtain a liability order, which is then made into a charging order.

There's probably a rule that you can't do it if there's a pip claimant living there though.

It takes two to tango
Pleanty of women have children they can ill afford.

I don't agree. Primary residence means the home you live in. People who own their homes are not claiming the housing element of UC.
Make them sell up, and eventually they will be.

Does he have child maintenance arrears? Has he not been paying the amount he’s been instructed to pay?

I agree with this approach. If the govt paid child maintenance direct to the resident parent and then reclaimed it from the non-resident parent, I'm sure they'd be better at going after the fathers. I think this is the approach in Germany and other places.