EMA and household income

[Trampoline11]

I am a bit confused. Can anyone throw any light on this for me please?

My H and I are separated and have been for years. I have no idea what he earns. He has given me the same amount of CM for this time. Due to a few reasons, I have worked part time, lost jobs, picked them back up etc but can safely say that by living frugally, I'm ok but on a low income.

For some reason, H seems to think that any grant for education will involve his salary and won't be based on my income for DC's.

I wanted to apply for EMA for DC2 but H went mad at this shouting that they will be looking into his finances etc. It seems that we are very separate households financially until this issue.

He could be very wealthy for all I know but we don't benefit from that so why would he be concerned about this one thing regarding education?

Apologies if I'm a bit vague and unclear but I honestly don't understand why a seemingly intelligent man sees this as fraudulent (DC to claim the allowance) when he lives with me and we have a low income.

Any ideas?

Would he rather get divorced ?

We should really. This will sound awful I know but he probably can't be bothered and I don't have the money.

Most things I've read though mention separated or divorced. We are 100% separate households. We sold large house and bought 2 smaller 12 years ago.

Can I ask @catfunk how that would change anything if we are separate households?

I assume you're not in England?

You're a completely separate household - separate bank accounts, separate bills etc - what ever he earns won't affect what you can claim. He is probably not aware of this and thinks his income will be looked into and judging by his reaction he's probably been massively underpaying you in child maintenance for many years!

Sounds like he's panicking that he'll be found out to have been massively underpaying you child maintenance. Apply for the grant. And maybe dig a bit deeper into his finances.

When I got ema it was based on my mother's income only because that's who I lived with.

Not in England, no. I dare say that he has been massively underpaying CM but how can a self employed chartered accountant (I know, I know) be so ill informed? I can't even begin to get involved in the things about DC1.

He's suggested I claim UC and whatever else but this one thing (as well as Uni grant for DC1) has him worried to say the least. I wish I understood. Even if he hasn't been paying what he should have, surely that ship has sailed now?

My son gets ema and it’s only based on my earnings. Ex wages didn’t come into it

Scotland too

Thanks for the replies. Why would he panic though? What organisation is likely to inform me the he's earning xx amount rather than x?

I understand what pp are saying and somethings not right but I don't know what!

Anyone else have any ideas? I'm baffled.

He told me a few months ago that he was 'running down' the business to enable DC1 to get more of a grant for Uni. That with a few clients and his state pension (due in 2 years ish) he could manage ok. Given his job, I asked him if I could believe the gov ni website about state pension - he said he didn't have a clue! Yeah ok.

He must think I'm daft (I can live with that) and am expecting CM to go down in new tax year. I could be wrong about this. DC's are not young.

Why would he be feigning ignorance about things that surely he would know? It doesn't make sense to me as even if we were to divorce now it would just be a quick thing due to the length of separation, the DC's ages and that property was sorted years ago.

Any ideas?