What's a fair amount of child maintenance?

[AlisonMiranda]

I separated from my husband late last year because of his anger issues. I feel there's no hope of us getting back together but he's refusing to go to mediation and says I have to drag him to court if I want a divorce.
He has much more savings that me and now lives with his mother in a house that he will inherit. He earns approximately £1000 a week. He pays her £100 a week.
I earn £500 a week and still live in the family home. 3 kids, one at Uni and 2 in school. At the moment he pays £150 a week child support but constantly threatens to stop it.
I'm try to decide whether to proceed with a divorce, which might be very costly, or wait a while longer and see if he calms down enough to go to mediation.
My solicitor was very nonspecific on how much maintenance I would get in a divorce. She advised me to go ahead but I'm worried that if he drags things out I could go through my savings awfully quickly.

Does anybody have a rough idea of how much maintenance I would be entitled to? No mortgage on the family home.

Have you checked the CMS calculator? It’s based on his earnings.

You can use a child maintenance calculator to work out what you would be eligible to receive. Although morally he should pay for your DC at uni, he isn't legally obliged to through the CM system as far as I understand it. You wouldn't be entitled to any spousal maintenance unless it's court ordered, but he's not a v high earner so probably nothing.

Be careful if you go down the CMS route. They are not the best if someone goes self employed and your DH was to fiddle his earnings. There's nothing you can do at all.

Also his living arrangements are nothing to do with you so CMS won't take into consideration if he would inherit 10 houses.

Yes, he is self employed. I can still check our joint account and he is taking out large sums in cash pretty regularly, so I think he is hiding money.
I'm worried that if I start proceedings he will stop maintenance altogether and drag things out until DC1 is out of Uni and DC2 is out of school. I think he'd like to see me use all my savings chasing him.

I'm not looking for spousal support, or even any of his savings. I'd just like to sort two things. Pensions as I was a SAHM for a while and my pension really suffered. Child support for the kids including help with Uni if they go.

He's having counselling for his issues but seems even angrier than he was when we split first.

What’s your solicitor advising about pensions and splitting other assets? They’re best placed to know the ins and outs and likely outcome.

He only needs to pay child maintenance for the two at school so you’re right he might try and drag things out till that’s not a consideration. They won’t count as dependents for housing purposes once they’ve finished school either.

I’d crack on with the divorce, if it’s going to take ages as he’s going to be an awkward dick about it then the sooner you get it in motion surely the better.

if hes taking money out your joint account you need to take half quickly and move it into an account with your name on it only.

Its joint money regardless of who has put it there- you are married!

I saw the solicitor twice and didn't get into any detail about numbers. I sent a letter requesting child support through the solicitor and that really upset stbxH, but he started paying after that.
The solicitor has sent me the documents to retain them so if I do anything further I'll be liable for possibly high fees.
I'd still really like to go to mediation and have an amicable end to the marriage but it's looking very unlikely at the moment.

£150 per week for two children (one at uni not taken into account) assuming that the £1000 per week is the gross amount he earns and that he never has them to stay sounds about right for the CMS calculation. Presumably your children are teenagers so if he does end up getting his own place and having them to stay regularly that amount may reduce.

My understanding is that court ordered maintenance is likely to be broadly the same as the CMS amount and is only binding for one year anyway, after which your ex could apply for it to go back to the CMS amount.

You're better off thinking about how your assets will be split than about maintenance. If you want to stay in the family home you will have to consider how to achieve that e.g. can you remortgage sufficiently to buy him out or does he have a large enough pension to offset transferring the family home to you. I'd be inclined to take out half of the value of the joint account if there is significant money in it that he is withdrawing (so you take half and he takes half for now).

Btw there are situations where stalling divorce can be advantageous if you can bear it. If your children are older teens but you're not going to be able to keep the house following divorce, delaying divorce by a year or two might allow you to stay in the house at least for that time. Plus a delay might take some of the emotion out of it for him and he might come to a point where he really wants to get on with it e.g. if he meets someone else at which point he might be more willing to discuss settlement. But it's hard living in limbo and if he makes reckless financial decisions in the meantime you're impacted by them.

There's only his wages going into the joint account now. My wages are going into my own account and I got the household bills transferred to my account. I can still see transactions on the joint account because I didn't take my name off it.

He has assets in his own name worth more than the house.
He would actually be better off financially in the long run to go to mediation with me but he's too angry. I agree that if he met someone else he mightn't be so angry so that's a big plus for doing nothing now.
I don't like the fact that he keeps threatening to stop the maintenance though. Teenagers are expensive and I like to be on top of budgeting.

University question is very quick to answer. He won't have to pay anything to you for children that age but potentially your child could seek maintenance from him at university but I don't know much about how (or if) that works.

Child maintenance for the other two, depends on the government calculator.

Pensions, depends on the other assets. If you need more of the FMH then that will diminish your claim to a share of his pension (his possible inheritance is a red herring, his mum could suddenly decide to leave her house to the cat's home and it won't be considered).

@AlisonMiranda Here you go:

Over 18 but no financial support

If an adult child finds themselves aged 18 but without any financial support for university, there is provision.

Under the Schedule 1 Children Act 1989,
an adult child, in education, can make an application for maintenance (periodical payments) from one or both parents.

The application cannot be made if the parents are still living together in the same household, but only if there was no maintenance order in force with respect to him/her before immediately before their 16th birthday.

Such applications these days are rare predominately because of the availability of student loans to pay for both tuition and living costs, but also that an adult child is unlikely to get legal aid to fund their application.

The provisions for adult children after the age of 18 can be complex and so it is always better for the parents to agree on how they are going to support their children through university and until what stage.

Realistically, the paying parent would be poorly advised to agree post A-level maintenance paid to the other parent because they could not guarantee it would reach the intended recipient. I was very clear with my ex-wife that I would support my children at university but it was a matter between me and the children, not her.

For maintenance for one child with a salary of about 50k maintenance would be about 450 a month. So less than he is paying.

I'd be 100% ok with support for the child/children at Uni getting the money paid directly to them.
At the moment the kids aren't seeing much of their father as they were upset by his behaviour before the split. StbxH is saying that if they aren't making the effort with him he won't support them.

He earns £1000 a week after tax, and not counting bonuses and shares. I'm not sure what his yearly gross salary is.

Unfortunately the realistic outcome is that they will get nothing. There are laws but they're probably too expensive to enforce to be worthwhile pursuing.

He will live to regret his attitude though. We can be certain of that. What kind of person demands that their teenage children shower them with love and attention before they can have money? He should support them unconditionally.

The court has no jurisdiction over child maintenance unless he earns more than 156,000 pounds a year or in some very specific cases. From the details provided (1000 net a week, not seeing the 2 children), he earns 75,000 pounds a year and CMS will be around 895 pounds a month. He doesn't have to pay anything else though. You are responsible for everything including your utility bills, activities, etc.

Thanks for the replies. I think I will put the legal proceedings on hold for a few more months and see if things settle down a bit.

He used to be extremely generous, money wasn't an issue years ago when I was a SAHM. I know he is using threats about money for the children purely to upset me but hopefully his better nature will reappear in time.