Can I claim child maintenance retrospectively?

[JohnnyMarr]

I've had an absolute nightmare over the last five years with the twattery of both Ex H and the CMS.

Ex is paying (after a fashion) CM for DS but stopped paying for DD when she left school at 16, three years ago. I had been under the impression that CM stopped at 18, so hadn't informed the CMS that DD was no longer in education but received a letter from them stating that Ex had informed them of this and so payments relating to her would cease and I would have to re-pay the payments made in respect of her since she left school.

And here is where my own stupidity comes into play; I've just checked my consent order in relation to something else entirely and noticed that it states he must pay CM "until each child shall respectively reach the age of 18 or cease full time secondary education, whichever is the later" It goes on to say that if either one of us fails to pay any sum of money which we have promised the court to pay a person entitled to enforce the undertaking may apply to the court for an order.

Can I somehow claim the unpaid maintenance at this point - and if so how - or am I just going to have to suck it up and kick myself for not having checked at the time?

As you claim using the CMS, the longer is no longer valid.

I meant the order is no longer valid.

Agree with the above. When you went to the CMS they override any orders and their rules apply after 12 months. Solicitors should normally point this out during the orders being drafted that clauses can become unenforceable

Thanks for your replies.

@wobytide payments were through the CMS all along, and the order specifically states that he should continue paying in line with current CMS amounts, so does the above still stand?

In fairness to my solicitor she was phenomenal and I'm sure must have explained re the order becoming unenforceable but it was an exceptionally traumatic time and all a bit of a blur tbh.

I guess either way I'd rather it was unenforceable than not receive the payments because I omitted to check the order!

But there is no current CMS amount as your child has left education. Therefore no maintenance is due under CMS. In any case, the consent order stopped being relevant as soon as CMS made an assessment.