Child Maintenance

[fantasticoplastico]

I have 2 children and currently receive £500 per month in child maintenance.

This has always been an informal arrangement. Their father has sporadic access (his choice) I have always encouraged time together. I’m trying to work out if this is a fair amount. I don’t know he much he earns but from his lifestyle certainly has a lot more disposable cash.

I’ve always thought this was a lot but I’ve got separated friends who pay more on tight salaries out of choice.

I feel too money grabbing by asking for more but also I’m desperate to save for a house one day and I’m struggling to save.

If you’re thinking of formalising the arrangement through Child Maintenance I’d be very wary of that. My ex made himself deliberately redundant in order not to pay the £19pw he’d been assessed to pay, and now works off the books, hiding a significant portion of what he earns. He has two overnights a month, frequently less.

I’m not sure how much more you’d get if you formalised your arrangement, but hopefully others less jaded by the system will advise you!

Without knowing how much he earns it’s impossible to say if this amount is fair. If he is self employed for example then going via CMS could wind up getting you far less.

I try and gauge how much he earns from the job he does. You could get a rough ball park, i would only go via cms if he’s employed.

My ex isn't self employed so I just went to CMS and they did all the work.
So resply it depends on what job they have, if you want to rock the boat... mine and my ex's relationship couldn't get any worse so it didn't matter!

Self employed

If self employed then it is very easy for them to minimise their declared earnings. For them to assess as an increase I think he would need to be declaring about 40k gross income. As you have an informal arrangement that has been working well it would probably be worth just asking him and probably more likely to be successful.

It makes it so much more difficult if he’s self employed as it will all depend on how much he’s putting in earnings through his tax return. If you’ve had the same £500 monthly arrangement for some time, have you tried asking for more contributions.

Him being self employed he could easily fudge his accounts to reduce his salary to CMS….its a huge risk and 9/10 times it ends badly and they find a way to pay zero! personally I wouldn’t rock the boat too much. Are you able to see his company accounts online?

(for context I get £0 for 3 children as he made himself unemployed and has “given up” looking for work)

Don’t bother with CMS if self employed. They are completely useless. I battled for years so that my son was properly supported. If you have a reasonable relationship, I’d probably talk to him. I do understand how difficult this is.

Afraid I have to echo what the others have said. If he’s self-employed you may find the reason he’s got a lot of cash to flash is because he’s being paid cash in hand. It’s certainly the case with my ex. As a result, Child Maintenance have assessed him as being ineligible to contribute to the financial upkeep of the child he chose to have, because he can hide his actual income.

You would need to be sure of his field line of work. Does he ever buy the clothes? If you asked for help at Xmas or for school uniforms would he help at?

Its difficult to say without knowing roughly his salary!

Do not use the child maintenance service, it’s horrific. Paying parent was told to pay £5 a week, he went self employed and hides a significant amount of his earnings since, every month I receive notification that his income is too low to enforce the payment like clockwork. I’ve not received a penny in 9 years and there’s nothing CMS can do about it.

If he’s self employed don’t rock the boat but ask for him to split big things that come up eg a school trip etc. my ex earns 70k and pays about 620 a month for one child