Question About Child Maintenance. Seperated.

[LuckyKittens]

I'm new around here so please excuse me.

I separated from the father of our child after both signing the Birth Certificate. I am now looking to get Child Maintenance from him.

The father is happy to pay up money though no amounts have been discussed between ourselves but he immediately made clear he is only happy to go through the Child Maintenance Service.

I suspect this to be the case as he is now no longer working and only in receipt of Universal Credit and PIP. I worry this will give me a low payment each month. What can I do? He quickly informed me he had put forward a request to the Child Maintenance Service to set up payments after I asked him about paying up and he is clearly reluctant to pay any money into my bank account without Child Maintenance Service involvement.

Is this all okay?

What next?

Thank you.

The CMS payment will be low if he's on benefits but it's what he's legally required to pay so there's not a lot you can do about it.

The benefit of going through CMS is that the payment will increase if he ever earns more in the future and they will, in theory, chase him up if he stops paying.

He will pay you £7 a week if he's on benefits.

That's if he pays you direct. If he wants to do it through CM (collect and pay) he pays an extra 20% and you lose 4%.