Child maintenance - what does it cover

[PineappleMum]

So my EXHTB needs to pay me £108 per week CM as well as other agreed costs.

He has told me tonight that as he bought clothes for our DS and medicine (a bottle of Piriton) for our DD that he is deducting that from his payments.

Is this okay? This is probably the first time in 12 years he has had to pay for clothes!!

He also hasn't paid me for last week as he couldn't afford it...

He should be giving you the cash directly. Please ask the CMS to transfer to DoE order as otherwise it sounds like he’s going to use the maintenance to be awkward

Er no thats no on! So he gets to look like he is buying new clothes but actually it is you?! What a dick.

No. He must give you the money. He can choose to spend what he likes on your child or nothing at all but the amount of cm he pays should always be the same. Is this a court order or cms?

If your DC stays with him then he's expected to fund their living costs completely when they are with him. This means if the DC needs clothes, medicines or whatever when with him then it comes out of his pocket.

The child maintenance is to help pay towards the living costs of the DC when they are with you.

This is why the CMS has a sliding scale for maintenance costs.

We agreed the amount between ourselves using CM calculator. He has been paying monthly on 1st of month in cash.

However it's now the 10th and he's left me £100 and says he will pay that every week for rest of month taking into account deductions.

He is supposed to pay an extra £200 per month for other things (clubs and extra mortgage payments)...

Total amount per month he should pay is £582. Seems he's paying me £400 because he bought a few T-shirt's and some antihistamine!

You need a proper agreement in place, not a casual arrangement. He has proved that by his actions now.

You need to formalise the arrangement - presume he's a high earners paying that amount ?

So he should pay for stuff when the children are with him, but child maintenance should cover everything when the children are with you, i.e. clubs, school trips etc.

Is the extra £200 you mentioned for clubs and mortgage formalized? Otherwise I would suspect that going to the CMS will result in him removing that payment instead...

CMS will calculate Child Maintenance based on the paying parent's earnings and nothing else. Adjustments will be made if shared care is 52 night per year or more. Other adjustments can be made for special payments. Look on the link:

www.gov.uk/how-child-maintenance-is-worked-out
Clubs. hobbies, holidays are not in the CMS calculation as not considered day to day costs.

Application to CMS cost 20 pounds (unless recently changed). Can take a while to arrange, but payments are back dated to the date of the application.

Advantage of CMS is that is it binding. Mutual arrangements are not.

Disadvantage is that if paying parent is self employed they seem to be able to run rings around CMS. Those operating through Limited Companies with clever accountants seem to get away with paying less than they should.

Good luck