child maintenance through csa

[MrsSalvatore]

I go through the csa with regards to my exp and child maintenance for ds. Was just wondering if they ever do a review of how much I receive per week. At the moment I get £35.00 a week from my exp but that's what i've got since ds was born it's never increased with minimum wage increases etc. My tax credits have been reduced considerably and im struggling to make ends meet. I know exp should be paying more because he works for his family and am sure they fiddled his payslips to begin with. I wouldnt bother but he doesnt help with any other costs for ds, any clothing etc they buy stays at theirs and i buy all his uniforms, shoes and his childcare is £30 a week alone

You can try the CSA . If he is paying maintenance he should not pay for additional items. Is he on min wage?

£70 pw is ample to provide for a small child IMO.

he wont be on minimum wage not working for his dad! i dont expect him to pay for additional items im just assuming that he will have received a wage increase in 4 years as ds is 4 1/2 now, yet the maintenance hasnt been reviewed.

You can ask for a review but there is a limit to how often you can ask for it. Sounds to me like you are due a review. They don't do it automatically, you have to request it (most NRP don't seem to volunteer info automatically re increased income, but do when their income goes down). Simply contact CSA and ask them to recaluclate (don't give him time to get his payslips amended).

And of course you can ask for help with additional items. That's complete rot to say he should not pay for them because he pays maintenance. Exceptional items such as school trips should be shared (especially where a reduction for overnights is in place - ie NRP is calculated to have costs in having contact with child). Getting him to do so of course is a completely different matter.

Meant to point you here too. Page 28/29 is possibly what you need to look at in addition to asking for a simple recalculation.www.csa.gov.uk/en/PDF/leaflets/new/CSL303.pdf

Have you checked out getting the chilcare element of working tax credits? It pays 80% of the cost, although is reducing to 70%.

gillybean I was informed directly by the csa that if a nrp is paying maintenance through them, then they should not be paying anything additional as the maintenance is supposed to cover half of the living costs of the child.

You could get CSA to do a review.
Or make a note of all of your child's average weekly costs; lunches, school uniform,clothes, childcare(after any tax credits you get) etc and then work out what half of the is (taking in to account the days that your ex has the child of course)
If it ends up that your ex does owe you anything, sit down with him with the figures and show him. Ask for him to top it up so he is covering half the costs of the child he co-crated. Tell him if he doesnt then you will be asking the CSA to investigate his earnings and he will probably have to pay even more.

If he is paying £35 per week you will probably find he doesn't owe much in order to be covering half of your child's costs. My 6 year old has never cost £70 a week.

How great it would be if we could rely on the ex being rational & understanding if presented with a breakdown of costs with a view to get him pay more towards the upkeep of the child(children) in question. Unfortunately that is rarely the case.
I bring up 2 very young twins (just 2 yrs old) entirely on my own. Their father pays throught the CSA £16 a week in total because he is able to hide his 'real' income. He is a wealthy self-employed business man & will think nothing of berating me for not getting them new shoes, etc. I pay £1300 a mth alone on childcare costs so that I can work & keep a roof over their head. He refuses point blank to acknowledge any costs associated with them and the CSA has being less than helpful in investigating his lifestyle. I was even able to present them with his company accounts showing his dividends. Sorry for the rant, just get so fed up with it all .....

Childcare is something that baffles me as far as non resi parents paying for it. I think often that CM is actually too much. i.e I make a note of my childs costs each month and they never exceed £125. Therefore I cannot see why anyone would claim more than half of that per month form their ex. However... that is without child care! My DD'schild care is now only £250 as she has started school but whe she was a toddler it was £800n a month! I fully expected my ex to pay half of tha we both work! Why the hell should I pay all the child care??!!

My DSs father believes that childcare is nothing to do with him. Apparently I'm the one who has decided to go out to work so it's my choice & my expense - yet he refuses to pay more than £8 a week for each of the boys ... so not quite sure how he thinks they can survive on that. He has also said that he can't stand anyone who is on benefits. Sooooo I'm wrong for working & having to put them into childcare but would also be wrong not to not work .... Amazing thought process ...

'chosen' to go to work? dick.