Hi hive mind
As I have no children and am not divorced, and my friend is embarrassed I said I would ask here. I have anonymised some of the unimportant details for privacy.
My friend (Mummy) has been divorced over 4 years and was divorced when I met her and is still divorced/single. She has 2 lovely children both under the age of 12. She is somewhat under 40 and until the last 16 months never had to work even before marriage and is only educated to A levels due to generous parents, she and any siblings received the same financial treatment.
The father is also not university educated and earns about £45,000 a year.
The former marital home was chosen by mom pre children. Ex husband bought it ( with a mortgage) kids happened and then it ended in divorce.
Apparently according to Mum and our now mutual friend group it was acrimonious at best. For some reason my friend Mum insisted on a “clean break” divorce whereby Father would sign over the house to her, her parents would pay off the mortgage, Father would have no claim to the house or (and I presume this is the main reason for the clean break) any future inheritance(s) mum would receive in the future. She wanted no spousal support or child maintenance from father.
Apparently that is what was entered as the order. Father didn’t feel good about not paying child maintenance so he started savings accounts for the children paying in more each month than he would have been ordered to pay in maintenance and those statements get sent to mum.
I’m not in the know about what happened, if Mum and grandparents fell out or if whatever the source of grandparents sizeable gifts dried up, but whatever happened it necessitated Mum to find a job. Which she did, and luckily considering no education, experience and COVID, found a job that would fit the children’s school schedule, is over £20,000 a year. Like most of us has been on furlough for some time.
She now wants to pursue Father for child maintenance. Is this possible? Especially since the clean break, the no spousal, no child maintenance was at her behest?
As I have no children I don’t know what is reasonable here, Mum has no mortgage, a 2 year old paid off ‘brand car’, and because of the job has a weekly take home between £350-£400.
To add: this is no where near London and I have no idea how much children cost so please excuse my ignorance.
Thank you for any responses.