50/50 SPLIT EX IS TRYING TO CLAIM MAINTAINANCE

[Sarajandb]

Hi, trying to figure out where we stand. my partner has a little girl age 6 with his ex and for the last 3 1/2 years the arrangement has been 3 days one week 4 days the second so 50/50 on saying this we have her more ! shes regular too hungover to take her back and in holidays she takes no time off so we have her more. Over xmas out of 14 days we had her 11. we take her on holiday every year for 10 days and so on. There is no legal agreement in place. We do all the travel which is 40 miles there 40 miles back we do 6 trips week one to take her and collect her from school and week 2 is 4 trips. We pay for everything our end school clothes, shoes, coats, clothes, etc etc. She has little involvement with school he attends all school plays etc and pays for everything to do with school. She claims benefits for her which has never interested us in splitting or causing a problem there. Now however for a reason we do not know she has gone to the CSA. I have two other children and the travel is a big bill. Where do we stand legally. Surly he shouldn't have to pay her anything as its 50/50 and our outgoings are much more.

She may well have short herself in the foot as I believe CSA do take into account how much time the child spends with with the non-resident parent.
I’m not familiar with what questions the CSA will ask the father. But I’m sure you can list all expenditures.

In your other post you were the father of this 6 year old.

She can't claim maintenance if it's truly 50/50.

Most people only get 20 or so days of annual leave, so it can be difficult to cover even half the holidays. Perhaps you and your DP have to have her more during the holidays as your set up allows this.

If this was my child I'd be going for full custody with occasional visits from the mum. No way would I want my child to have much contact with parent who doesn't show an interest in their child's life and gets drunk.

It isn't 50/50 this is what needs to be made official. Perhaps have a court order in place.

gilly you don't know anything about this mother except the biased report you've seen here. Perhaps she can't get out of work to attend school events. This happens to a lot of people.

No court will award full custody when a 50/50 set up has been in place unless there is proven evidence of serious neglect or other safeguarding issues.

she uses all her annual leave for social events not school holidays ! my partner is self employed and between us we cover all school holidays as i have two boys also. we have her the majority of holidays. xmas out of 14 days we had her 12 her mother wasn't even bothered. she was dropped of xmas eve at 4pm and collected again by us xmas morning at 11am ! as mother myself i find that shocking !!

I’m puzzled by the xmas arrangements, the child was dropped xmas eve at 4pm and your partner dropped her home xmas morning at 11am? As a parent that shares xmas/holidays I wouldn’t be bothered by that either.
Also... did u have the child 11 or 12 days out of 14? As you said 11 in your OP but 12 in your PP.

Regardless of all these issues you state, a father should pay child maintence unless the CSA say he shouldn’t.

why should the father pay maintenance if he has the child primarily ! why shouldn't the mother pay the father !
we had her 12 / 14 days. We had her upto xmas eve 4pm dropped her off overnight and picked her back up 11am xmas day she didn't even have her 24 hours and u think the father (bare in mind this happens in every school holiday or weekend she is supposed to have her and never does ) is supposed to pay her money !

If the child is with the father primarily then he should apply for a residence order to say that she lives with him, then when the CSA start asking for payments he will have the proof that the mother is not entitled to CSA payments if that is what they decide.
You cannot decide wether you pay maintence or not if you have no legal orders in place. The CSA are the ones who decide.

I’m now puzzled as to what the arrangement is, your OP says 50/50 but you are now saying primarily 🤔

The arrangement is 50?50 however we have her more than the agreement.
My question is as its not a legal agreement how do we prove this to the CSA its her word against ours. i've started a log of all the obvious time off top of my head i know we have had her for a long period of time.

What I don't understand is why you need 2 threads exactly the same

OK - to clear up a few things.

The CSA is no longer responsible for new CM claims, the CMS is. That's important as they follow different rules to those the CSA used to follow

From what I gather, the CMS will normally assume that whoever has the child benefit is the primary carer and therefore due to receive CM. However there is a rule which says when care is shared exactly 50/50 neither parent is classed as the primary carer. Unfortunately you might have to prove that and a lot of staff at the CMS either don't know about that rule or don't care that it exists.

If the ex does put in a CM claim with the CMS you'll need to do one of two things:

a) Apply to get the child benefit. This is unlikely without....
b) Apply for a child arrangement order which confirms that you share care equally. Child arrangement orders have replaced residency orders. You'll have to pay the court fees yourself which is very unfair.

Good luck with this, you're morally 100% in the right here. Don't back down.

two threads two different subjects. School and maintenance.

2boysDad - thank you .. that's a great help.. we have considered just applying for the child benefit as he can prove that he is the one who has the most involvement with school and they have our address. Her doctor is reg at her address but we can soon change that.
Shes never taken her to a dentist or optician so all that's done thru us and at our house.

I would advise based on all your threads you seek legal advice from a solicitor.

Why do you keep telling us She never did this or does that?
If you are even close to 50/50 then you should be doing half of it.....
So why haven't YOU taken her to the dentist?
Why didn't YOU take her optician?

It could be that she has notified someone for a change in circumstances and they have harassed her to claim maintenance.

I made a change end of last year. 15 minutes the person trying to convince me to claim even though I said repeatedly no and the reasons. Since then I have recieved a couple of texts and letters and when I had to phone last week, again it came up.

"Shes never taken her to a dentist or optician so all that's done thru us and at our house."

It's highly relevant to the OPs original post. It's evidence that the OP and her partner are playing their full part at parenting.

Courts and CMS appeals tribunals work on evidence.

OP - you'll need to collect as much evidence to prove that you're an equal parent as you can. Horrible that you should need to do that... but just the way it is.

No.
It's bobbar.
At best it's a misguided new partner buying into the bobbar.
At worst it's the father spouting shite.

Still bobbar.

Well as it's 50/50 of course they should be playing a full part and be equal parents.

That's different to showing there's a reason for them getting residency with a contact arrangement for the DM.

How do you/ he communicate with her.
I would go with texts and keep every single one.
If you take this to a lawyer you can draft up a legal agreement for the pair to stick to. This would keep everything right.

Fannywisdom the OP says dentist and optician is done through them so they are doing it.

I'd expect that the dentist and optician is near to your home OP so that will be some evidence that you're doing your bit in looking after this child as a minimum of 50%

LJ, if you have 50/50 that means half of the responsibility is yours not just half of the days.

If the child needs dental it is BOTH of their responsibility not just the woman/mother.
If responsibility is 50/50 they are equally to blame.

What’s bobbar?