Child benefit and shared custody??

[Char11]

Hi all, hoping someone can give me some advice for my sister.

She separated from her husband in July 2010 and they divorced in October. The financial agreement since the divorce has not yet been finalised, but they have a separation agreement which states that custody will be shared (this has since been confirmed in court) and that she will claim child benefit on the basis that she pays for all school related expenses (uniforms, trips, clubs etc) - for 3 growing boys this is not cheap.
The circumstances have not changed but out of the blue she had a letter saying that he has now applied to claim child benefit. He earns more than her and she is still paying all the agreed costs.
She is in bits, as he is a total bully and seems intent on making her miserable. Does anyone know if he is likely to be awarded the benefit, given that custody is shared and he earns a higher salary. Oh, and she has never claimed any maintenance from him (yet!).

Thanks for any advice/words of wisdom...

As far as I'm aware the HMRC investigate and decide who is the resident parent.
So if she's paying for everything, has address registered with the schools etc she should be ok.

There's no such thing as shared care according to them.

www.hmrc.gov.uk/childbenefit/start/claiming/more-than-one-claim.htm

It's a guess really but I'm pretty sure there's little chance of this happening and even if it did your friend would in theory just not buy what she does now for the child and the ex would. Honestly I don't think the court will be happy if that's the only issue

Thanks both of you, I agree that it seems unlikely they would award it to him. I believe both their addresses are registered as home not, but she still pays for all essentials. Her worry is that she found out today that the person in receipt of the benefit can claim maintenance (even though she never has) so she thinks that might be what he is after - even though he earns more than her and is about to move in with his new fiance who also earns more than her!

The child-benefit people look at the individual's case and award it to who they think is the main parent.

Is it an exact 50-50 split of overnights?

Yeah, one week on, one week off and alternating christmas/easter. He is VERY pedantic about making sure he gets exactly the same number of nights per year as her!

the only other thing they can do is split the cb 50/50,nd then share all the extra school costs.somehow i dont think he,d like that tho.

No ellie I don't think he would!! I suggested to her yesterday that she could call his bluff and suggest doing that, but that officially she's still the claimant - so then he couldn't get any maintenance. She's thinking about it. Even if he refuses, at least it shows the courts who the reasonable one is!