Interim order and CMS

[BlueBearone]

Hi there.
I’ve found myself in an interim contact order thanks to my ex partner, and my ex husband conspiring & colluding together & creating a series of allegations against me which is now being investigated through a fact finding hearing.
I said it would be best if my 9 year old twins went and stayed with their father until all the mess with my ex partner got sorted out (bailiffs turning up, sexual assault, harassment, blackmail etc) so the courts have my ex husband a lives with interim order.
however, ex husband is just as horrible, and is now saying I will never get them back, I’m mentally unstable…..(the usual crap that the courts love to hear, non of which is true)
ex husband has now gone to the CSA and they want me to pay £870 per month in maintenance!
I simply cannot afford it!, but it says on CSA website it’s a priority bill.
I'm having to spend money on barristers & solicitors, I’m having to keep a 4 bedroom house going.mortgage, utility bills, debts my ex partner has left me with etc, all without any additional financial support.
my ex husband is now saying he will seek to get it taken directly from my salary.
he was straight into the CSA the day the interim care order was ordered & keeps texting/emailing trying to get me to admit I’m ‘refusing’ to pay for the children: I didn’t claim a penny from him for 4 years when we first separated and he didn’t contribute to any bills or school clothes etc. Now he wants to stick the knife in and take me for every penny he can.
As it’s an interim order, can CMS order me to pay it?
I've only ever heard of the CMS being so slow at getting money from people & some people battling for years to get money. It’s seems I’m the only one that will be forced to pay it in the quickest turn around possible!
Any advise? I’m hoping interim care order will be reverted in May.

What does your Solicitor say about paying the CMS. Why didn’t you claim CMS from Ex husband, can you get the interim order changed asap or at least 50/50 then you wouldn’t have to pay. Have to pay it all sounds quite messy for your children, hope they are ok.

@Mindymomo its been horrendous. It started last August. My ex Husband and ex partner hated each other. My ex partner wanted to gain full custody through a joint C100 application that we put into the courts in May 2021…3 years ago As the children were suffering with anxiety & not wanting to go to their Dads house. They were struggling with routine etc. Anyhow, court process was so long winded, several DR hearings, different judges each time, total waste of court time & extremely frustrating. CAFCASS appointed a Child guardian last January who was utter useless & did nothing. Fast forward to August 23, my ex partner and I separated after I asked him to move out. He had money issues I wasn’t aware of, was getting verbally aggressive towards the children & I couldn’t handle his mood swings. Ripping up photos of the children, emptying my Sons bedroom one day & moving himself in there. Separating the fridge into compartments for ‘his’ food. Just stressful & tense acts that the children were witnessing, so I told him to leave.
ex partner then decided to go to my ex husband and tell him I was drinking, taking pills, stopped the children from doing their homework, refused them breakfast….honestly, the allegations. As like all court cases, this is dragging on & on. The CG then made a recommendation that the children remain with their Dad until all allegations were proven otherwise, which they now have been. Disclosure of medical notes, PETH test to check I’m not an alcohol, which was completely clear, references from my employer etc…..however, the CG doesn’t like me as I made a complaint to CAFCASS about her conduct. She made a live with recommendation without ever seeing me. Or seeing me with my children, but based her recommendation purely on the allegations!! It’s disgusting.
so we’re going back to court in May. The CG is being investigated & suspended, but as she made the recommendation to the courts on the 7th February (and failed to attend the hearing) the judge took her recommendation and suggests the children remain with their Dad until May. It’s awful. I’m only allowed to write to them, not have any face to face contact. It’s totally over the top & not at all good for the children. My Son tried to abscond from school 3 weeks ago through a hole in the fence so he could run home to me. Absolutely NOTHING has been done by CAFCASS to investigate this. It’s useless. And to top it all off, all my ex husband wants to do is go gunning for maintenance!
the court process needs to change ASAP. There are far too many children & families having decisions made incorrectly for them & far too slowly. My children are desperate to come home, my heart is aching & breaking & the whole time they are with their Dad, he will be brainwashing them & turning their heads. The man’s a diagnosed Narcissistic personality disorder individual!
So, in a nutshell, the whole thing is a mess & I cannot afford to pay for ongoing legal support and be expected to pay all the bills & £800+ maintenance. The CSA haven’t even asked me for an income & expenditure review!

The CSA haven’t even asked me for an income & expenditure review!

Not sure why you think they should. Maintenance is based entirely on your income. You have two children who are not spending any nights with you. Maintenance is therefore 16% of your gross income for the first £41,600 of your annual earnings, 12% for anything above that.

CMS bases their calculation solely on your income, not your expenditure. Paying for your kids is a priority. Unfortunate for you that you didn't open a claim when they were with you but that doesn't change the fact you would need to pay now. I would also, unfortunately, prepare myself for the fact the interim order may not be reversed, or at the very least the father will continue to have a 'lives with' order and you may see them at weekends/evenings in the week etc. Courts don't like to change the status quo and if the earliest the review is taking place is May then you may find they seem the kids settled at their dads.

This kind of thread is instructive to posters on this site who believe that CMS is a minimum, and that a decent father would pay more than the CMS assessment. It also highlights that the assessment has little to do with how much it costs to keep children, as OP could clearly afford the children when she was the primary carer, yet cannot afford to pay the maintenance to the father now she doesnt have the expense of looking after them.

So from what you've said, in 2021 you tried to get 100% custody of your twins with your then partner, stating they had anxiety and didn't want to go to their dad's house. Cafcass presumably didn't agree with this, so you complained about them.

Having brought a questionable and unstable partner into their lives and to live in their home, when things get abusive with this partner you send your twins to go live with their father even though apparently they don't want to go. He's has narcissistic pd but you decided he was still ok to fully look after the dc whilst you sort your life out with unstable partner.

Once partner is out of the way you decide actually you want your dc back, that they hate living with their father and your heart is now breaking. Meanwhile the courts have decided it's actually in the dc's best interests to live with their father and now you are kicking off because you have to pay maintenance.

You've been ordered to pay £870 a month which means you must be a mid-high earner, yet you are saying you can't afford it. How then did you afford to care and provide for the twins when they were living with you and apparently you didn't get any maintenance from their father?

Sorry but none of this stacks up and I feel very sorry for your twins caught up in all this and your ex who is probably just trying to be a stable parent for them.

I'm not sure of all the references to CSA as it's CMS (CSA stopped operating in 2012).

The above responses ignore the fact that the OP is in a house she has got because that is where she housed her children. She has reasonably expecting them to return to their home. You don't just sell your house because your children have gone temporarily to stay with their father. The costs of that house haven't reduced because the kids aren't in it.

A little empathy on this board sometimes wouldn't go amiss.

@Elektra1 I do have empathy, but for the dc not the op. She tried to stop her ex husband having any care of their children, but then when it suits her she drops the twins on him even though she states her dc didn't want to go. Children do have feelings! They aren't there to be passed around as suits the parent. They need stability, caring parents and routine (something the op has already said they struggled with whilst with her).

No-one is ignoring the house. If op could afford the mortgage on the house before then presumably she can now as she no longer has the costs of looking after her twins. Unless her statement about not receiving a penny from her ex husband is untrue. Or if the reason she can't afford the house is because her partner, who she understandably kicked out, is no longer contributing, then that's nothing to do with the ex husband claiming maintenance.

I don't support an op just because they post on mumsnet and just because they're female. There's more to this I imagine than the op is telling. Cafcass, CG and judges don't generally state no f2f contact between a mother and dc without a very good reason.