CMS

[Drjason]

ex-wife was advised badly by someone (surely) to get me through CMS as she thinks I earn morethan I do . Long story short, I receive the letter and its 200 quid that will go to the system and not even to my kids due to their fees.

I told the ex I am not happy with this and pay the government free money that I have worked for just being she is being petty.

What can I do as I do not want to pay this at all just being she is petty. I will rather go self employed than bow to this BS

thank you for the input, it def makes sense.

we shall see how it plays out, its not due til Jan

she has ignored this because I think she does not believe me or just embarrassed to accept the result

You do realise you’re on here complaining about her being petty, when your answer to it is to be petty and go self employed to teach her a lesson.
Try taking a breath, think of it in a more child focused way and then maybe you’d get better responses. Mumsnet is very good for offering advice to either parent. But less so when the parent is behaving like a toddler and throwing his toys out of the pram.

You only have to pay the fees if you refuse to pay the amount due on the date advised.

Your ex will be able to prove that she did not receive this by showing her bank statements.

Somebody clearly didn't realise that other people have knowledge of exactly how the system works...

I always thought you had to be in some of areas to be on collect and pay?
Open a manditory consideration for direct pay and equalisation their decision? If you've been paying there's no reason for it and as you say your paying over that so your ex wife is being spiteful

Question not equalise! Sorry

If she is no longer allowing the DC for contact then back to court to enforce your CAO.

Don't have a CAO time to get one.

The next thing which will be typed here is that ex spends all the maintenance money on her hair, nails and new man 🙄🙄🙄

I'd speak to ex, tell her you'll pay the original amount you were paying, maybe a little more.Then you can both contact CMS and ask to withdraw the claim saying you've got an agreeable private arrangement.

There is nothing that you can do, it’s been decided now. Perhaps if you had behaved more agreeably then your ex wife wouldn’t have felt the need to take you to CMS. I expect that the advice wasn’t “bad” advice at all and very much just what she needed. You just don’t like it, it’s really not the same thing. Bad advice would be to advise your ex wife to stay in an unofficial payment plan with a man who will threaten to deprive his children the moment things don’t go his way and who throws his toys out of his pram.

The fact you’ve stated you’d rather go self-employed than pay towards your children is disgraceful and clearly a tiny snapshot into your unreasonable behaviour which prompted your ex wife to formalise an arrangement with CMS in the first place. Making threats like that shows that you don’t have your children’s best interests at heart and would definitely rouse suspicion that you’re not being truthful about your earnings even if you are. If you refuse to pay it they will deduct it from your earnings or court order and recover through bailiffs.

Also, CMS works 12 months in arrears so that even if you do go self employed you’ll still be paying what you earned 12 months previously anyway. They also have the power to investigate your income and outgoing to judge if you’re withholding income and if found to be doing so won’t adjust it. You’re not the first bright spark man on the planet to try and weasel out of trying to pay the pittance low bar of statutory maintenance, they know every trick in the book.

There was a fantastic thread about a man who was made homeless because they decided to lie about their earnings and go self employed in order to avoid paying child maintenance to his ex. His landlord got wind of his now unstable financial situation and kicked him out and because he was newly self employed no landlord or mortgage company would touch him with a barge pole.

Do you have a verbal agreement on childcare?
Try and get something legal put in place, if not.
Contact CMS and have the conversation. Ask for a reconsideration to direct pay to her. Tell them you are happy to send proof you have paid it and what you have paid previously especially if you haven't missed a payment. Ask the adviser to explain changing will lose her even more money.
I agree when CSA swapped to CMS the government got a hell of a lot of people's 24% that should be for the kids.
She thought she could get more its backfired on all involved.

You can’t win in this situation unless you can convince your ex to close the case and take direct payments from you. Yes it’s a waste of your money but you’re currently paying less, so just put the extra aside into a savings account and see a solicitor about access.

It takes an awful lot of 'chances' for someone to be put on collect and pay...

Took them six months of non payment for them to action it for my ex (for the peanuts he was supposed to pay) and guess what? He promptly went 'self-employed' and somehow has managed to achieve the god tier level of deadbeat dads of 'no payment at all' as the poor love 'doesn't earn enough'...

To add, he's in a very well financially rewarded trade, so absolute bollocks that he doesn't earn enough, he earns more in a day than I do in a month.

Don't be a wanker like my ex.

If I were you then I’d protect me 120 nights a year with a Child Arrangement Order. It costs £210 plus a mediation session and you don’t need a solicitor to do it.

petty is in response to her being petty with this. All done

I thought so too. she just contacted them out of the blue and boom, i got notification of it

wrong "Somebody clearly didn't realise that other people have knowledge of exactly how the system works.."

If its direct payment, they send instruction to your work place to deduct the figure which includes the fee added on top already

Well there is no helping you then. You don’t want advice, you want a fight or to get one over. Mumsnet is more about helping parents who have the best interest of the child first. You don’t want to do that so I’m out. Unhappiness lays ahead with that attitude. And if you are bothered about your child, you might want to think about changing your mindset. Poor kid!

So you think £200 a month is a 50% share of what it costs to house, feed, clothe, buy childcare etc etc for your DC?

Loser.

Huh? That's not how CMS works.

They will have contacted you first telling you how much you need to pay by direct pay. The only reason you will be moved to collect and pay and incur a 20% fee is if you have consistently not paid or underpaid whilst under CMS.

You say you were paying more but you seem to be including payments you make for subscriptions, childcare arrangements, etc.

Are you giving your ex let’s say £2k per month and CMS are saying £1k plus their 20%

or

Are you giving your ex £500 and then allowing the kids to use your prime/netflix/sky, paying for their mobiles and gym membership, paying for football/dance/swimming/whatever and buying them designer clothes every month and telling us you give them £2k a month

(obviously the numbers won’t be right)

Those two things might both be £2k a month on the kids to your mind, but they aren’t the same thing to your ex or CMS

CMS only tells your workplace to pay if you have refused to make proper direct payments previously. CMS can do that as their instructions carry as much enforceable weight as a Court Order. And that carries a fee.

Workplace deductions are absolutely not a first resort, but you keep telling yourself that 👍

This is actually untrue. The CMS now place you on pay and go if you are delayed by even a day. This Regulation has only come in and means any late payment whether accidental or not will automatically mean you go on pay and go. This does not take into reflection whether you've made 3 years of payments on time and at the correct amount. So there is much grey on this. Once you have been placed on irrespective, you are on this for 12 months.
My advice is that if you have been caught on this accept it. But again as a result i would only pay exactly what the CMS have stated and nothing else. The system in broken for fathers so this isn't a surprised.

That's not even slightly true.