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Divorce/separation

Here you'll find divorce help and support from other Mners. For legal advice, you may find Advice Now guides useful.

Cash in hand and CMS

1 reply

BronzyBaybee · 07/08/2025 21:53

my ex - the paying parent - has conveniently ‘lost’ his job with no notice and is now on benefits. He is blatantly working cash in hand - had social media accounts for his unregistered posting daily photos etc about works he was doing on the daily. He has now taken them all down. He is literally rubbing in my face he is earning by redecorating his place, expensive meals out, just generally throwing the money around. None of which he was doing before he ‘lost’ his job! All the while CMS have put him on a NIL payment plan! He is nearly £2000 in arrears once again from constant missing or short payments, before they put him on NIL payments. We only started with CMS February 2024. Nearly went wage deduction 3 times but talked his way out of it last minute!

My question is, has anyone successfully managed to get CMS to investigate cash in hand? I know I can ask for an additional income variation, but do they actually request bank statements etc? He must be paying it in as the benefits he would get wouldn’t cover anything. I just don’t know how to best approach this although I feel like it’s a list cause!

Im just tired of the fact I’ve been having to call them multiple times a month for a year and a half and yet he seems to always get away with not paying what he should, and now nothing whilst I’m budgeting like my life depends on it so my boys don’t feel the difference! So far 2 months on NIL payment plan and he is living his best life!

sorry for the long post - from one very tired and broken boy mama 💙💙

OP posts:
N0Tfunny · 07/08/2025 22:13

The only part of CMS that will get hold of his bank statements are the Financial Investigation Unit. Even if you send them copies of his bank statements, they won’t accept them.

IME it will take years to get them to investigate , I do mean literally years, it’s taken me since 2023 and 2 complaints from my MP. They think they might be finished the investigation by 2026 and then my ex can appeal it to the First tier tribunal, which can take another 18 months.

So his kids might get some money from him by 2028.

My ex is in arrears of over £30,000 which he is paying off at £7/ week as he claims to have no income. He has a luxury car, a mortgage free 5 bedroom house, he holidays in the USA and Dubai for 6 weeks a few times a year, has a large rental property which he allegedly rents out for free and a company which makes hundreds of thousands a year.

But he has no income so only has to pay £28 / month 🙄

Im sorry I wish I could be more encouraging . But the system is set up to allow men to abandon their kids with almost no consequences.

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