After kids are 18, if they’re still dependent

[User69371527]

What happens when DC are 18 if they are still financially dependent and living at home/at uni?
If I am the resident parent and ex spouse is very high earning compared to me, is it just the case that maintenance will have stopped and I just have to hope he supports them directly?
(he won’t agree to spousal maintenance)

What if they have additional needs (autism), does this change anything?

what did consent order stipulate?

mine is ex paying if in education, and if not…. we will come to an arrangement. However we were and continue to be 7 years later…. very amicable and i trust him. plus he’s a brilliant dad. So i would be speechless if he didn’t.

We’re in the process of drafting it but so far have left CM out of it. But solicitor just brought it up to me.
im happy with the split of assets and equity so don’t really want to rock the boat. He can be v tricky but I want it sorted as he’s going to buy me out and I have a purchase going through. I want my equity out.

I do also trust him. He has said he ‘doesn’t want to subsidise’ my ‘lifestyle’ but will support his kids and I do believe him.

At 18 i wouldn't be expecting my ex to be paying maintenance to me for children who are legally adults and should be working themselves

They could make an application under Schedule 1 of the Children Act

Really? Even if they were still in FT education? My DD is 18 and doing her A Levels this year. She has a part-time
job but is focusing on her exams so only does a few hours. She couldn’t possibly support herself at this point.

university?

i don’t want my children working at uni. I didn’t and it was three years of hard hard work and a LOT of fun!

i then got on to an all consuming well paid grad programme at 21. so 3 years of being quite responsibility free aside from studying responsibilities versus the next 50 years of working? i’m ok with supporting that as a parent and thankfully so is my ex

I worked throughout university, had full grant and still needed some parental financial support.

I would include it, OP.

I think it's reasonable to continue supporting until they are :21 if they are at uni but that could be seen as a choice rather than necessity so really will be down to your ex. He could pay kids direct rather than via you. (And you give less as a result)

With regard to your child with Sen it depends how severe, is your child going to need care all their adult life? Will they leave home? If they need significant support then yes maintenance should continue (I don't know how this works in court) if it's a case they may need more support but will still be a functioning adult then could look at additional support as needed. (Again could ex offer direct)

In my experience once they are 18 unless they are in full time education which is 12 hours or more a week I think, then the non resident parent in this case your soon to be exh doesn't have to pay a penny towards his children. Child maintenance can stop the day after they leave education. It's brutal as we all know most 18/19 year olds still rely heavily on their parents for pretty much everything. As far as I can remember if your child then goes on to university you can still get some child support from them but not the full amount up until they are 21 years old depending on the degree they are doing. When mine turned 18 I then had to work extra hours and move house to a cheaper area to continue to be able to cope financially as they both still lived at home and their father stopped child support but also didn't help them financially in anyway. My youngest is 23 and I'm still supporting him as he's at university. He works part time as well so pays a little rent which helps a bit. Like I said this was my experience of things. It may have changed since then.

I don’t know if this is possible but can you include something where he agrees to at least partially finance their University education, even if the payment goes directly to them?

I my situation we have no consent order in place, we just agreed things ourselves.
Exh paid maintenance (albeit a crappy amount) after ds turned 18 but only until he finished A levels.
He's now at uni and luckily he's living at home because exh declared he was no longer paying as he doesn't have to.
I looked it up and he is right.
It's not morally right though is it?
Ds does get a reasonable maintenance loan but that's not the point.
I asked exh if he could continue to contribute due to the fact that ds was still dependent. It's actually costing me more because I lost my maintenance and my child benefit, plus he's at home a lot more so therefore using more gas and electric in the day too.
His dad's answer was that ds should be able to afford to pay me board from his student loan!
Any respect I had for my exh as a parent has gone I'm afraid after his reaction to this situation.
It's like he just gets to relinquish all responsibility just because he's 18 but I can't and obviously won't.

Once I left education and my dad stopped paying it was down to me to pay rent and cover the shortfall my mum faced including child benefit stopping and any benefits or council tax relief. I was 16....

There is no way most 18 yr olds are in any way independent financially or otherwise. Especially if he has SEN.
Support is needed until early twenties and sometimes beyond. Legally a parents responsibility ends at 18 and CM too, but realistically most young people need many more years of help and support.

Thanks all
i do believe my ex will support them directly after 18/education but obviously anything could happen.
I can see from his point of view he won’t want to legally be tied into paying money to me when their adults (spousal maintenance) and I believe that there isn’t a way in the consent order to include him paying money direct to them.
He’ll also probably be mortally offended if I question it and bring it up and the whole deal we’ve got going might be off 🙄

I’ve also remembered they each do have a junior isa trust thing which he has been quite generously putting into (£100pm each) so I guess that will help.

there are 3 of them. 2 have diagnoses of autism but certainly with the eldest (15) she wants to go to uni and I wouldn’t anticipate she would be more financially dependent because of it but of course you never know.
it’s a bit less clear with the youngest as she is less academically able

I see a lot of consent orders due to my job, and often there is a caveat that child maintenance will continue if the child chooses to go to university. I would discuss that with your solicitor, they must have come across it.

Yes thank you
solicitor has asked me about it and we’re due to meet soon. I just (probably naively) thought we’d leave child maintenance out of the consent order completely.
he hasn’t got a solicitor and we’d agreed that now we’ve agreed between us on assets and pensions we’d now just ask a solicitor (mine) to draft it for us and we’re sort of past the negotiation and advice stage. But some additional things are coming up I hadn’t considered.

The urgency is because I’ve had an offer accepted on a house and we’re doing the transfer of equity (him buying me out) and I really don’t want to miss out on this house.

Well either you can trust that he'll do right by kids and will pay them directly to support them or you don't trust him.
If you think you can trust him then just leave it and get your house purchase through. He may even pay slightly more directly to the kids if they are at uni.
If you don't trust him then you'll need to get something added in to say maintenence arrangements continue until 18 or in FT education ends.

That’s really wonderful for you and your children. However not all ex spouses are like that

It is quite common though to have a consent order for child maintenance ro continue through tertiary education. Don't assume he will do the right thing by your children going forward especially if he meets a new partner and starts a new family even if not on the cards currently!!

He needs to provide for them until they can provide for themselves. If you feel confident that will be the day they turn 18 or leave education then that's ok but if like many children they still need to live at home and really on you for help even when they are 18 then you need to put something legal into place op.

and i didn’t for a nano second think otherwise

Ugh it’s so hard
i wish he’d just got a solicitor and we did it all through them in the beginning! But I know that would’ve cost a lot and he refused anyway.
we did have one mediation session.
I’m trying to keep my head and not let my emotional attachment to this house and desire to have it over and done with cloud my judgement and mean I compromise more than I should. But it is worth so much to me (and the kids) to get out of the rented house and have some permanence.

he will provide for them, I’m as confident as I can be of that.
even now he never says no to them when they ask for extras or ask about one off things, and he could say that should all come out of maintenance.

I think it’s best if we see the solicitor who’s drafting it together and then she asks both of us what we want in there re. Maintenance and when it ends.

splashing the cash is like a pride thing for him and the main (only) way he demonstrates love for them, if that makes sense.