Child Maintenance - CMS or Consent Order

[modimon]

I hope someone can help me decipher what to do here. I have also posted in Chat but not had any replies.

Our "Family Based Arrangement" has not been working and I will need to do something about it.

When I applied to the CSA a couple of years ago it became evident that my ex was not being truthful about his earnings and so we would be receiving pittance. We agreed on a monthly amount between ourselves instead. However he has been sporadic, late and even stopped payments at times.

I would rather get less a month than have to deal with this. But I am wondering which route is best to go down?

I will call the Child Maintenance helpline after work, but while I am here I thought I would post this in the hope I can get an idea of what to do, from people who have been through this themselves.

TIA

He won't be able to lie about his wage with them as they know from his previous tax year. You can then arrange for him to pay directly or have it taken out his pay. Which will incur a small charge to both of you.but by the sounds of it that's the best way for you to go.also u pay £20 for them to set it all up.
I'm going to be contacting them in a couple of weeks. DS dad pays regular etc but hasn't increased in 7 years. Despite knowing he earns more and when I said if he could increase he said £1 a week. Altho when he gets a bee in his bonnet he tends to say stick your maintenance up your ass. So sod it I'll go via them. They process it all within 6 weeks.

I'd go thro CMS every time.

It works best if he's in paid employment if he works for himself or cash in hand you won't get anything.

CMS registration takes an age to complete but once you're done they are pretty good at making them pay.

However I'd check every couple of weeks on the progress of your application, they don't bother searching hard for NRP's who ignore them but if you press matters with them they do then try.

Have your ex's contact details and work details handy if you can when applying.

Bonus is they do a check each year to ensure he's paying according to latest income.

Any CM ordered by the court is only valid for 12 months, at which point cms regain jurisdiction and he can apply to them to have it reduces to the minimum anyway.

I think he is self employed and not declaring all his earnings

I have called CMS and they are processing my application.

They said if it comes back like last time (claiming he earns less than minimum wage) - I can contact the tax evasion people and they will investigate??