Ex overpaid child maintenance via direct payments

[Jayd20]

Hello apologies for the long post.
I have a 11month old and prior to applying for child maintenance my ex was not contributing anything towards the baby’s upkeep. In January this year l got a maintenance award for £31 a month... ( he actually works cash in hand which l have no way of proving so cma went by his declared tax records income from 6 years ago). The maintenance payments were due to start in February 2019 by direct payments.
In February and March 2019 he made £200 payments each month & when l asked he said he appreciates £31 a month is not enough to raise a baby. I informed CMA l was getting overpayments and was informed that since he was doing this willingly and was choosing to support his child with more than the minimum payments set there wasn’t an issue. In the couple of months he made payments he was trying to reconcile with me and l declined all his advances and requested for any communication to be solely about the baby which l guess offended him because since then he hasn’t taken any interest in the baby.
Since April he has not made any payments and initially was asking to meet me in person to pay me cash which l declined and requested for him to do bank transfers as agreed when l filed with CMA.
I eventually contacted CMA in May about lack of payment and today l got a call with an update from CMA stating the non resident parent ( the ex) has informed them that he made payments of £200 in March and February making a total of £ 400 in the couple of months he has paid maintenance therefore he has paid more than the total of £365 that he would have paid in the year therefore for the remainder of the year he nolonger has to pay anything and will only have to start after the annual review next year 2020 February.

At no point did l ever discuss with the ex and agree that l wanted the annual maintenance to be paid in 2 instalments instead he willingly made the overpayments.
When l pointed this to the CMA caseworker l was given the response that it’s up to the paying parent to choose how he Walton make the instalments so given he made over payments within the 2 months CMA cannot expect him to make anymore payments over the amount they calculated for him to pay annually which was £365 and l had received a schedule with dates for payments of a little of £31 over the 12months.
Is it worth me challenging this and if so how?
Would appreciate any advice please. Thanks in advance

Apologies for the lengthy post

This sounds odd as I was told the same as you initially were; that a payment had to be paid each week/month of x amount and if he paid more that was his choice but would not affect future payments.

I would call again . Tbh you may get a different answer if you talk to someone else.

Thank you I will contact CMA and try to discuss again. It would be great if there was consistency in how CMA handles cases.

This has happened to me.

Paying parent didn't pay for first 2miths. When contacted CMS they stated he was in arrears of 300. So she agreed to pay extra each month for 4 months. Then started paying my lesss. I contacted cms for them to tell me he's overpaid by nearly 550, as the arrears were included in the amount they gave me. Which they failed to state in a letter

They know about this, and have told me to leave it until he mentions it. They will review in August 2019.

I haven't told him.

So I reckon in August I won't get 2/3 months of payments

Load of rubbish. You’re entitled to maintenance the whole time to get child benefit. If he chooses to pay more then that’s up to him, if your award says £X then you should be getting it.

Thank you all for your responses. I rung CMS today and spoke to a different case officer who initially said my Ex is expected to pay £X amounts of agreed child support despite his overpayments. However she then read the notes left by previous caseworker and was then reiterating what he stated that the year’s amount is already covered by what’s been paid already. On reminding her what she gad said initially she then said she needs to speak to the previous caseworker then will contact me next week. It feels the rules change depending on who you speak to.

I would complain upwards .