50/50 shared care - should I claim child benefit

[HardyCat]

I currently have a 50/50 childcare split with my 3 boys staying with me exact equal times! I currently work full time but do take one or 2 morning off a week to look after my 3 year old before he goes to afternoon nursery and work longer hours when I don’t have my children to make up for it. I am in a tricky position as my ex claims universal credit as she is only part time and gets more that way than working full time. She also claims child benefit for the children as she always has and I have never questioned it as thought it was only right that she gets this. She now has started to claim child maintenance from me which is £300 per month, after speaking with child maintenance they said she is entitled to this as she claims the child benefit even though they know we have equal share! They told me the only thing to do is contact child benefit and tell them we have 50/50 care and they will stop the benefit for her as I am unable to claim anyway because of my earning! So if I do this she will lose out on £260 a month for the benefit plus my £300 I give her but if I do this then I will be £300 better off, as I go halves on everything anyway, haircuts, clothing, after school clubs etc! Not sure what I should do and what is morally right to do, any advice I would appreciate

They won't necessarily stop the child benefit for her as she is still entitled to claim it. You could do a counter claim for 1 or more of the children but it'd be a bit of a shitty thing to do.

You can have a claim and opt out of payment if you earn over £80K or claim the money and pay it back via your tax return.

So if opt out of the claim would that suffice with child maintenance that we have shared care or would I still need to make child maintenance do you know? Thanks

Surely child maintenance is based on your income and the split of care? Why would the child maintenance be relevant?

Also 50/50 custody doesn’t stop her being able to apply for child benefit. One parent can still claim if they’re entitled too, you can’t just call up and cancel her CB claim?

If you have equal shared care the cms should be nil unless you’re a high earner …. Are you? If so £300 a month despite shared care might be reasonable?

Has she claimed you don’t have equal care and that’s why CMS think you should pay?

if so yes, claim child benefit and they will establish equal care- usually they decide one child each, don’t know how it works with 3!

alternatively go to her if you think she’s reasonable and tell her you intend to claim CB. She may decide it’s better to lose the £300 and keep the 3x CB than risk losing both.

As I've mentioned on threads before (and am sometimes told I'm making it up!) I know of 50/50 situations where one parent pays the other CM as he was a much higher earner and it helped to equalise the standard of living for the kids at both homes.

Why should CMS be an option if 50/50 care and one of the coparents chose to work PT? I’d understand if there was a huge disparity on wages if both were working FT, but it seems a bit unfair to the OP

Thanks for the response, I wasn’t wanting to call up and cancel her claim, as I understood from child maintenance because she is claiming child benefit they are deeming her as primary carer and the only way to avoid this is to inform child benefit of our equal share, I may not be entitled to anything or I can opt out of payment from them, but I was unsure if she could still claim, as the way they explained it neither one of us would receive the benefit but I may have understood wrongly, which is why I have posted this to try and understand a bit more before calling them.

But she must have put in a claim for maintenance then? It doesn’t just happen automatically.

Of course she can claim child benefit as she is responsible for caring for the children. You would be entitled to claim for 1 or more of them and in the case of a dispute the CB dept would decide who would get benefit for which child.

Yes all seems a bit unfair, I am not able to work part time as have a small business and cannot claim anything, I work 12-14 hour shifts when I don’t have my children to make up for the time when I do have them. My ex on the other hand was able to work full time with a salary of £45k but chose to go part time as she gets help with rent, UC, child benefit and now child maintenance - I know she has more disposable income than me as only works 24 hours a week and lots of free time but is claiming primary carer even though I have gone 50/50 on all children’s needs since we split if not more

If she's on UC she's not as high earner. The OP clearly states he wouldn't be entitled to the CB due to his salary so the CMS are calculating it on disparity of income. It happens alot.

You don’t have to be claiming you are the primary carer to receive child benefit though. Either party in a 50/50 custody arrangement could claim. Or you can’t claim for different children.
You aren’t eligible because you earn too much, that’s got nothing to do with her:

Yes she has put a claim in even though I was going 50/50 on all children’s clothes, haircuts, after school clubs etc

But if he wanted to he could claim and opt out of payment or he could claim the money and pay it back. Anyone can claim it but may not take the money or have to pay it all back.

If you can prove it's 50/50 equal care then you can appeal the claim to CMS. CMS will say it's awarded based on the other party claiming Child Benefit, they don't go further to investigate it - that's up to the appeals process.
If you follow the appeals procedure you'll go via tribunal and provide your evidence to demonstrate your care is a 50/50 agreement, where a judge will make a decision.

I didn’t read that? Where has o/p said he’s not entitled due to his salary?

I read it as he didn’t know if he’s be entitled due to her already claiming it. It does usually go to mum after all.

o/p do you earn more than 60k? Or 80k?

In the opening post....i am unable to claim because of my earnings......

Someone said it previously but 50/50 care doesn't mean that no maintenance is due. If you have a large disparity of income then you may still 'owe' her maintenance. It may be/seem unfair though.

Is it 50/50 care not 50/50 costs? How many nights do you have the kids?

Well if you’re currently paying 50:50 on all costs you could stop doing so as the cms should pay for that…..

ultimately it comes down to your earnings … it doesn’t make sense that if yours are at the level of not being able to claim cb that she’d have more disposable income even if claiming uc etc…

if you’re really doing 50:50 shared care put in a call to cms and dispute their calculation

Sure, but it’s pretty shitty to claim CB rather than the mother of your children when he’s a high earner and would have to either opt out of the payment or pay it all back in tax and the mother is a low earner!

So she is working part time and the tax payer and OP are footing that bill! I’d challenge it.

OP is hardly “footing the bill”. He’s paying £100 a month towards each of his 3 children and from his previous post his salary is at least 90k. It’s hardly leaving him penniless like he’s trying to suggest.

I earn just under £60k just for information, so I do earn more but not excessively more! My ex left, I continue to currently pay off all our debt, credit cards, loans we had which is why she is effectively better off a month. The children stay with me 3 nights one week and 4 the second week and it rotates every 2 weeks so we each have them 7 nights in 2 weeks for context! So I feed them the exact amount of time, cloth them, pay half of everything but then I also have to pay £311 per month as I earn slightly more than her but she chooses to work part time as it’s more beneficial and has lots of free time.