What should Child Maintenance cover?

[FluffyGreenSocks]

Going through separation currently… we’ve agreed on an 80:20 split for our two young children. He has calculated Child Maintenance payments as per the government calculator, but my question is, what should this cover and what should be ‘extra’ that he should help out with?
He believes it (and I) should pay for everything to do with the children, including son’s before/after pre-school childminder, daughter’s before/after school club, all extra curricular activities, all clothing (and that those clothes will be worn on ‘his days’)… is that right?

Not exactly no. Cms is the minimum he is legally expected to pay based on the number of nights at each house. You are responsible for paying for everything on your days, he still has to pay for things for his days , so he should be buying clothes , toys etc for his house. Whether the amount he's due to pay is reasonable depends on his earnings imo, however there's no way to make him pay more.

Both parents should be contributing to the costs of raising a child / children.

The CMS amount is the minimum the NRP is legally expected to pay based on the number of nights at each house.

You (the RP) are responsible for paying for everything on your days.

He (the NRP) pays for things for his on his days.

If the bedford / after school club falls on your days - you pay. If on his days - he pays.

CM paid by the NRP is meant to cover the everyday living costs of raising a child. That includes housing contribution, food, clothing, school uniforms, everyday activities.

It doesn’t cover extras like expensive holiday, expensive after school trips.

Well, there’s morally and legally

morally he should help pay ‘exrras’
legally he only has to give cms and not a penny more

This there seems to be a misconception in mn that the non resident parent pays for everything, whether their day or the rp day.
Mnetters seem to believe saying "I'm the RP,' absolves a parent from actually paying bills or anything. And they can say I'm RP, and then complain about 'childcare..'

In an ideal world he would pay 50% of what the children need. Legally he doesn’t have to pay anything but minimal maintenance.
He does however have to pay everything at his house and on his time. Why does he think you should pay everything? Are you and he splitting up or him and his children? If he had them 50/50 then he would be paying for childcare etc on his days, but I assume it’s an every other weekend deal

Legally, his financial responsibility ends and what the calculator says.

morally is a different matter !

CMS is the legal minimum (though it could also be called a maximum, from his perspective) that is payable to you because of the circumstances.
You could spend it all on fags/booze, or on the children, there is no legal mechanism to force how it is spent. So, there is likewise no real guidance on who pays for what either, and there is lots of variation in practice.
Welcome to separated parenting.

I guess it depends on how much he's paying and what the kids cost are. If he's paying £7 a week that's not going to cover a few loaves of bread and a 4lt bottle of milk. If he's paying £1000 a month then that's another thing entirely.

Legally, he only needs to pay the CM amount. Have you checked the amount he came up with?

Morally, he should contribute more. He should cover half of school uniform, clothing, school trips,after school care.

I think it comes down to If he loves his kids more than he dislikes you. Allowing you to struggle also forces his kids to struggle.

@BillyBoe46 it also really depends on how much he earns, what he gives and whether he has any money after his own housing etc paid. It’s not just about whether he loves his kids!!!

I had an ex who wanted to extort me for £600 per month while also expecting me to pay for my own costs like travelling to see my daughter, now they lived hundreds of miles away.

I ended up using the government calculator which suggested something like £60 per week, which was much smaller than the £600.

I referenced this and mentioned that I would give extra money "as required" for things like clothes if she sent me a picture of the receipts.

She vehemently refused this simple request, and was incredibly annoyed by the recommendations made by the government to pay £60.

Since I was not refusing to give more as and when required, she felt it was my obligation to also pay for nice things like swimming lessons, even though the swimming pools are free for her to take our daughter.

When I moved to be closer to them, and took my daughter half the time. I stopped paying at all since I had shared custody and was responsible for my own costs. I said that any extra stuff like school uniforms she can request the money from me. Since the remainder of the child care at that point was so low it was essentially for clothes only, and stopped being about food and shelter, since I have my own costs related to feeding and sheltering my child when they're with me, so I stopped it entirely and this caused a lot of outrage but my argument was sound. 50/50 split, and not refusing to pay for things that were shared costs like school uniforms. I buy clothes for other times for my house, and she for hers.

She angrily opposed but she knew that I was right. If I have my daughter for half the time, and she has her for half the time, why is anyone paying anyone? Similarly for your case, they are responsible for 1/5th of the costs your kid is with them.

The maintenance costs cover things like clothes, shelter and food, not for things like child care or after school stuff or extra-curricular stuff.

There are, in fact, other ways to provide the clothing aspect too, so if he buys clothes or says "send the receipts and I'll send you money" then technically he is fulfilling part of his obligations and so the remainder of the child maintenance is for food, so it could be reduced by the clothes contributions.

Honestly I have no idea why some people believe that they are entitled to more than this like my ex thought she was entitled to £600 which was over 3x as much as the government recommendations. The government recommendations are pretty decent without making life hard or unfair for the NRP.

It’s just not well defined and there is an argument to say it shouldn’t be. Because it would tie the calculations up in endless knots and no one could resolve them.

Generally speaking it covers the “variable” cost of parenting. The fixed costs such as housing fall to you and don’t change because of the % split. Whether you overhouse or under house yourself is a personal decision. But the rent and mortgage on a house don’t change.

The payment from the non resident parent should cover half variable costs, Food, clothes, hobbies, necessary and unfunded childcare. You pick up the other half. But it gets abated for time, spent with the non resident parent. When they pick up the variable costs.

It becomes complicated because it is linked to % of earnings not actual cost. Happy days for children of high earners and not so much for children of low earners. The fact the Resident parents get 100% of any benefits or childcare subsidies is another complication. Plus not all costs fall on the days when the children are at the non resident parent. Who can duck out of child care costs.

That’s before parents get to defining what is necessary and what is discretionary.

At the end of the day you should be able to sit down and work this all out. According to your situation and circumstances. If you can’t do that then it is the CMS calculation and that’s it.

50% means there is no non-resident parent if they reside with either parents half the time.

In such a case, you don't even need to give regular payments if you are providing in other ways, like providing clothing as required.

"hobbies, necessary and unfunded childcare" - nope, it does not cover any of this.

On an 80/20 split, you already contributed more than your fair share because the starting point should be 50/50. Start at CMS level and anything else is generous.

Apologies. I thought that referred to the initial divorce split on assets rather than time with DC

He doesn’t have pay anything other than CMS and what the dc need at his house but you don’t have to pay for childcare on his days provided you have specified the handover time covers this. It’s not uncommon for the NRP to want contact to start in the evening and stop first thing and not cover the before and after school care. So the agreement should specify eg pick up from school and drop off at school or 24 hour periods (so it’s clear who has to leave work if dc are sick on a given day). But CMS just counts nights which could be 11pm-7am. It’s up to parents to negotiate the actual hours so the childcare cost is more fairly distributed.