Trust for child maintenance

[Anotherdiv]

I am going through divorce. My ex is self employed with very unpredictable income. So once we divorce it will be hard for me to get child maintenance from him via child maintenance service.
He however has stock and shares investments. I offered to him as child maintenance to set up a trust for our child. I then will be able to withdraw certain amount every month and no more than that.
Is it realistic? Will benefit people see it as a child maintenance? As I understand, normal child maintenance don’t affect universal credit. If this trust affects my eligibility to get universal credit, I will not be able to support myself and will need to rethink the whole thing.

It won't work. You could still go to CMS and so take twice over.

You would need specific advice on setting up a trust - it is possible, those with disabled adult beneficiaries to wills opt for this approach but it would be counted as investment income so needs very careful consideration. Far better is that your ex steps up and actually pays child maintenance directly to you - there's no obligation to use the cms in fact most people don't now because they charge.

Thanks for your reply. Can it be put in documents that if I go through CMS I will not be able to withdraw money from the trust anymore?
The problem here that I doubt very much he will be earning any salary/income from employment in future and most of his investments are in ISA so no tax. It means even if I do go through CMS I won’t be able to get anything as they check how much tax he paid and calculate from that.

@stucknoue, thank you, unfortunately I can’t trust him. Even if he says so now, there is no guarantee for me in the future. That’s why I thought that trust could be the way to do. If it’s on the name on our child and I only can get certain amount, will it still be considered as my investments?