Really confused!

[Littlefluffycloudos]

Hello, I’ve separated from my husband and we’re working out child maintenance. Daughter will live with me primarily but him 2-3 days a week. I earn a decent wage and he earns £30k more.

Now when using the CSA calculator do we both have to fill it in to see who owes each other what and then he would just pay the difference? Or am I considered the primary career and only he pays even though there’s not a huge difference in days?

If we did eventually go 50/50 would there be any monies owed by him to me?

I’ve tried to find a clear answer to this online but can’t!

My understanding of it is as the primary carer you won’t pay anything.
There should be a section where you declare how many days he has his child with him. Then filling out his earning it is worked out how much he needs to pay whilst the child is with you.
If you do go 50/50 you need to declare the change as it would reduce his payments.

You just fill in the CMS calculator to see how much he would pay you in maintenance - the way the calculator works out payments for non-resident payments is as follows:

Less than 52 nights per year: full amount payable
52-103 nights: 1/7 reduction
104-155 nights: 2/7 reduction
156-175 nights: 3/7 reduction

175 nights: 50% reduction minus £7

Now where it gets confusing, and why so many parents fight over custody and maintenance, is that if there is perfect equal day to day care there is no maintenance payable. This is because in those circumstances there is no resident or non-resident parent as both parents are equal caring for the child.

So you go from paying nothing for equal shared care to paying 50% minus £7 if you have the child for say 185 nights a year out of 365 - in my opinion this is absurd and the system needs overhauling.

For example, you will see people on here asking questions about court agreements where a father has a child 10 nights every 21, or ridiculous complex arrangement simply to game CMS payments and not in childrens' best interests.

Another roose is for the person claiming CMS payments to continue to insist that they are the resident parent under pure 50:50 arrangements by claiming that they receive child benefits, and are primary contacts for things like school and doctors... as the CMS appear to base their decision on "day-to-day care" on these things it then becomes yet another unsavoury court battle... which you might be able to tell I have some experience of!

Thanks that’s very helpful!