CMS and over night stays

[Rachaelf37]

Hi, me and my ex have been separated nearly 2 years now. He's built up contact so he now has our child on a Friday and Saturday night every other weekend.
He has drink issues in the past so he sees our child at his parents house supervised by them, which I'm happy with. He lives with a girlfriend in a council house but owns his own house and rents it out.

He's been in and out of employment since we split, he keeps loosing jobs after a few months however when he is working he has a good job and earns usually 30k a year. He was giving me £300 a month but we fell out and he's gone to CMS and they have taken his pension into account and say he only has to pay £244 a month and I know that is still a good amount of money, and I'm lucky in that some don't get anything, it's definitely better than nothing. However I pay for everything for our child.

I work full time and I get tax free child care, 30 free hours and child benefit but I still have to pay for lunch time supervision at nursery, meals at nursery, after school club and obviously all other costs. Next year I'll have to pay for before school club too, which isn't cheap. I buy all his clothes, uniform, coat, hat and gloves, pyjamas etc and hand them over to my ex in a bag. I also drive for half an hour each way (so for an hour) to meet his parents half way (they live an hour away) to pick our child up. Getting a £50 reduction a month therefore I feel is a bit unfair as on his days he just feeds him (he's three so eats very little) which his parents pay for, and usually takes him to the park. He rarely actually pays for an activity or clothes etc. Occasionally he might take him swimming.

Is anyone in a similar position? Any advice? I just feel the CMS method of reducing for overnight stay isn't that fair.

Urgh: he’s pathetic. Mummy and daddy are picking up/dropping off his child for him and housing the child (and him) to facilitate contact.

Sadly, there’s nothing you can do because the CMS system is just not very good and can’t recognise that the father is actually not having any real contact. The child has contact with paternal grandparents and their father sometimes shows up as part of it.

Of course it’s fair that it’s reduced for overnight contact and I say that as someone who gets £7 a week for my children. But yes it is fair.

It’s much less fair when the useless NRP passes all the cost on to mummy and daddy. As well as the work.

So? The op won’t be incurring the cost or the work when the child isn’t with her either?

She’s sharing the cost of the transport to contact with the grandparents. And she’s got to provide clothing etc for the contact because the father doesn’t provide anything.

Why are you defending shit fathers?

There is nothing the OP can do but as a society we should recognise when men are not fulfilling their responsibilities. And stop pretending any of it is fair.

The only person benefitting is the useless father who gets to pay less maintenance.

Because it doesn’t work on an individual level and maintenance SHOULD be reduced for over night contact. They can’t take everyone’s personal situation into account. If the ops mum was looking after the child you wouldn’t be complaining, his parents are allowed to look after the child same way her mum could look after the child that’s still considered HIS time. If ops mum looks after the child should she not receive maintenance for those nights as she’s not technically caring for the child on those nights either 🙄

My ex should have been paying me over £300 in child maintenance but because he’s self employed he claims to them he doesn’t earn an income so he doesn’t have to pay anything. He did come to a private ‘agreement’ (as in, I didn’t agree but something is better than nothing) and only pays me £140 a month. He sees our child every other weekend the same as your ex, Friday and Saturday night. But it literally costs him no extra. He’s in a one bedroom, so no extra bills. He changed our court order that I have to pick our son up from school on a Friday as he ‘has to work’, so that costs him nothing and I lose money. He pays no childcare at all. Literally his weekend with our child costs nothing out of pocket for him other than the odd McDonald’s here or play centre yet child maintenance would calculate it at over £50 a month? Barbaric.

I would ask ex and in laws together in an email Addressed to all of them or a WhatsApp group if they can please get clothes etc for use during dads contact time as dads payments are reduced to account for him paying what what the kids need when they're at his house. The grandparents should pressure him or just buy themselves out of embarrassment.

It's very unfair but I would look at this as grandparents providing free or very cheap babysitting - if dad said know I won't take them and I'll pay you a little bit more it wouldn't nearly cover the cost of child care. As it stands you get a little break and chance to have a night out or a date or a spa day.

@Unexpectedlysinglemum suggestion of a group email/whatsapp is a good idea and I'd add that given the reduction in cms payment you are struggling to cover all dc's costs (& I'd list them!) so can no longer afford the fuel to meet half way and assume they will be providing all dc's provisions for his visits

I thinks this is a case of be careful what you wish for . He may decide to have them at his to save him effort .

He more than likely isn’t great but stirring the nest might make more unsafe contact for your dc .