How are maintainance payments worked out?

[cafebistro]

Asking for a friend. She and her husband have split up and they have 3 small children. He earns a good wage while she works part time.
He is likely to try and fob her off with a little money as he can get away with. How would the government work out how much maintainance they children are entitled to?

IIRC it's 15% of the NRP's salary for one child, then 20% for two (which is what I get). Not sure how much it increases for 3 DC's.

I'm sure the CSA have a maintenance calculator on their website.

It depends on individual circumstances. Things like pension contributions, how often he has the children overnight and other children are taken into account.

Her best bet to get the most accurate estimate is to use the online calculator linked below.

www.gov.uk/calculate-your-child-maintenance

Thanks I'll take a look

Just an extra - they will be trying to get couples to sort out maintenance mutually with mediation now. If the couple can't talk to each other and sort it out then they now want a fee. I think it is a flat fee but not 100% sure just yet as although it is going to be applied to some cases already being bought in, they haven't got up to date with charging it yet (from what I understand). Old cases possibly won't be charged, but your friends possibly will. I was told around £10 per month. Made me laugh as ex only pays £5 per week (pretending he is on minimum wage) but will actually now be paying the same as half of his daughters monthly money on top, to a company he has already had to shell out loads to for admin costs as he refused to answer the phone and keeps letting his DD bounce (they charge admin costs to the knobs who do this but it doesn't affect your friend's monthly amount).

If they are amicable she may be better off talking it through with him, but CSA can only recoup £ from the date they are first contacted. So if he is gone now and she doesn't call them for 3 months they can't take back payment. She needs to be sure he will pay/set up a DD basically.

The fee's haven't fully kicked in yet. You only get charged for using calc and collect (the amount is quite small at the moment).

Yes you can use CSA to calculate for you for free and they'll send him a letter saying what he owes