Child benefit payments

[meghan1996]

Hi everyone, sorry bit new to this.
Have a 5 week old started claiming child benefit and as far as I was aware in the form I asked to be paid it weekly as because me and the father aren't married I think I qualify as a single parent but dosent seem to be weekly I'm being paid, any ideas?

I think you only get weekly if you're a single parent and on a very low income

I think it's special circumstances for weekly, like hardship

Marriage isn’t the issue with benefits
It is about income and whether living together

You are not a single parent if you are living with and in a relationship with the child’s father

Oh okay. I thought I qualified because I'm only receiving under 700 monthly with maternity allowance and child benefit included and I'm not entitled to anything else. Me and her dad are together but not living in the same house for now

You don't qualify as a single parent unless you and the Father aren't living together as partners. Weekly payments are only for those on very low incomes.

Child benefit is usually paid 4 weekly.

@BlueEyedFloozy me and her dad live in separate houses and both addresses were filled in the form

Is he financially supporting you either than child maintenance?

Sorry not either, that should read other

@Anotherlongdrive
He sends me £20 weekly for the baby, apart from that all finances are completely separate

£20 weekly is not enough money-did you both agree this amount?

£20!! Is he on a low income?

@KindnessCrusader @PrettyPurse
Yeah we did.. i thought 20 seemed okay whilst she was this age she's only 5 weeks and was going to up it when she needed more
Am I being stupid?? Lol

Well if he's not contributing half of the rent or bills for the house the baby lives in I think that's a staggeringly low amount of money.

5 week old baby... why aren’t you living together if you’re together?

If you are not living together, I would use the child maintenance service calculator as a basis for an appropriate level of maintenance from the baby's father. £20 is not enough.

Child maintenance is based on his income, not the baby’s needs and also not based on your income. You could be earning £10k per week and he still has to pay you maintenance based on his income. You can use the online calculator to work out how much he should be paying you. Start as you mean to go on - get him to pay the proper amount now rather than trying to up it later on.

www.gov.uk/calculate-child-maintenance

You need to look at the cms site to calculate what the nrp should pay. It is not based on her needs or your income. It is 12% of his salary before deductions. This is so you can put a roof over your dd head and put the heating on!

Just done the calculation and it should be 37£ a week. I'll speak with him tomorrow then! I'm still living at home myself as is he, plan to move out but not for another year until I can afford it. I'm getting 650 a month with everything and I pay 200 to my mum and another 110 in bills phone etc so it'll be nice to have a bit extra

Do you live with your mother?

As pp said he needs to be paying more. Rather then rely on child benefit weekly.

Just contact the child benefit people and ask for it to be paid weekly

www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-revenue-customs/contact/child-benefit