If your ex has (and feeds) the children for 2 full days and an evening (or sometimes 2) per week

[coldtits]

...and, according to the CSA he should be paying £40 if he wasn't feeding them any nights a week

how much maintenance would you ask him for?

I feel i MIGHT BE BEING A LITTLE UNFAIR BUT not sure.

As far as I am aware, the CSA work from how many nights the children stay over. So he could have them 4 times a week but if they don't stay over once then it doesn't count.

Does that make sense?

They take off one seventh per day, don't they, so roughly take a £10 off?

yy Niceguy. The CSA only care about overnight stays.

Well ermm as dc cost a lot more than £40 per week to feed, clothe, wash, school trips etc I would be tempted to ask for the full amount if you're doing it outside the CSA!

If you know how much he earns CSA website has maintenance calculator that takes overnight stays etc into account, tbh I tried for years not doing it through CSA but ex used to threaten not to pay so often went through them and now no hassle. I hope this helps

he does pay me what I ask for without any hassle now, so I just want to make sure I'm being fair. I don't actually use the CSA any more because their incompetence and heavy handedness makes things worse, and I don't count 'overnight' towards maintenance cuts, because it's the food that costs the money, not the sleeping.

I've been dropping it by £10 a week, so asking for £30 a week rather than £40. They have dinner (main meal) there twice a week, breakfast there twice a week, and lunch there once a week.

From what you are saying £30 at a minimum, maybe £35?

If you were going through the CSA and he was having them overnight for two nights a week, he would get a reduction from £40 down to £29 a week so asking for £30 sounds very fair. It's good of you to offer a reduction.

It does seem daft to use over nights to qualify for a reduction, when a child could spend 8:00am to 7:00pm at one parents house and only sleep at the others but the house they spent all day in, eating the food, using the electricity, water, gas etc is the person who has to pay the other.