Should CMS cover after-school activities when care is nearly shared equally?

[TTDTRT2]

I am trying to do the right thing by my children and my ex wife however she will not engage in conversation with me and so I am seeking some alternative points of view that will help me grow to understand her point of view and therefore offer a proposal that is a compromise to our current position.

I have two children with my ex wife, she has them 8 days a fortnight and I have them 6 days a fortnight. During school holidays we have them 50/50. As a result of this, and my salary I pay CMS of about £450 per month. For clarity, I pay this the 1st day of the month and have never been late or missed a payment. My ex wife works in a higher than average salary job.

My ex-wife believes that on top of this I should also be paying for 50% of all afterschool / extra curricular activities (apart from those on a Monday night because I don't have them on a Monday night). I believe that the full cost of the extra curricular activities is £231 a month, so she is seeking an additional £116. On top of this I already also pay 50% school trips, opticians, dentist and hair cuts.

To pre-empt some comments, I buy school uniform, school shoes, clothes, sports kit and everything the boys need when they are with me. When we divorced the difference in our salary was accounted for to ensure she was left with almost no mortgage on the family home, and I moved into a much smaller home with a large mortgage. I am not trying to shirk my responsibilities and have asked repeatedly for 50/50, this is currently going through court and is a seperate manner but she has said she refutes this because she wants the CMS payment.

My position is that the £450 CMS per month is more than adequate to cover the children's needs as well as their extra curricular AND any additional cost she might have for the additional few days she has the boys. They are old enough they do not need any wrap around school care in nursery or after school club so there are no big bills (nor has their been whilst we have been seperated).

I would love to hear other peoples point of view on this. I want to be the best dad to my boys and don't want them to go without and so will likely just keep paying but I do feel a bit taken advantage of.

Just to clarify:
She is currently paying for extra curricular activities on the nights YOU have them, and she wants you to pay half?
She is happy to fully pay for the activities on the days she has them.

Is that correct?

It is a bit confusing.

Sorry I did not mean for it to be confusing.

Currently I pay 50% of some of the extra curricular activities but not all of them. She wants me to pay 50% of all of them on top of the £450 CMS.

Who has chosen the activities, you or her. Many families have to restrict the amount of activities a child does due to cost. If she signs them up then she should pay & vice versa.

I think some of them are legacy from when we were together, some she has signed up for since we split and football is a newer one that I suggested to her but got her agreement in advance.

I know I have no right to ask her what the £450 is being spent on, but it just seems that the CMS in this particular case is more than adequate to cover the children's costs.

I fully appreciate if CMS were calculating a rate that was much lower than their activites that I would need to top it up or restrict the extra curricular. When I try and discuss with her the response is simply. CMS is not for extra curricular activities, you pay those on top. Its very black and white for her.

Clearly in a legal sense you cannot be made to pay more than CMS.
I don't think you will find any formal guidance whatsoever on this topic -- so, in the UK, it does come down to personal opinions and views.
I assume she also gets Child Benefit on top of CMS? (i.e. not earning above £60k).
Personally I would think about the ages of the children. If they're close to 18 the number of years making payment is rather few; if they're 4 and 6 we're then talking about a decade+ of such payment and possibly inequity. Moreover, once they get to 12+ they may decide to live 50/50 or some other proportion that they prefer.

in Your circumstances I think they should come from CMS

I would say you pay more than enough. £450 for only 4 nights extra a month is loads. Plus you pay towards alot of extras. I would say it should come out of the CMS you pay

You should be sharing the extra curricular costs. They are half your children.

Only CMS. You have children more or less 50/50. CMS can cover activities.

There will be a reason CMS is set as high as it is when you're nearly 50/50 which doesn't tend to point at you earning less than her.

What she uses CMS for on days she is responsible for dc is none of your business and the amount paid is irrelevant if it’s the CMS minimum. But CMS doesn’t cover anything they do on your time with them. If the activities fall on your 6 days and you agreed to the activities you would pay costs for your days just as you would if you needed childcare. If they fall on her set days eg Monday she would pay as she is responsible for all their costs that day.

CMS is calculated based on % time. So CMS calculate if she had them 100% and then they apply a discount for the number of nights you have them. So she is not responsible for any costs on your time as the £450 CMS already includes a discount for your costs when they are with you.

If the activities are jointly agreed and sometimes fall on your days and sometimes hers because you don’t do the same days every week then yes the cost should be split.

You can say no to activities, school trips and private healthcare. All these things are optional and plenty of people don’t pay for them.

Obviously depends on your salary but the fact you have a 43/57 split in school time, AND 50/50 in hols, it sounds like you are being shafted. Thats pretty much £100 a day for the 4 days (ish) a month that are not equal?