Child maintenance affect on universal credit

[Keepbreathingmrs]

Hello,

Apologies if I've posted this in the wrong place or under the wrong topic.

I've searched the internet for this but I'm a little lost and hoping someone may be able to help. I'm going through a separation and I have just applied for Universal Credit. I am trying to reach an agreement with my ex on short term finances before we delve into the divorce settlement. I understand that child maintenance payments do not affect universal credit qualification, however, is this still the case if the child maintenance payments are higher than the CMS recommended amount? So, if the ex is happy to pay more than the minimum, will this be detrimental to my application?

Thanks in advance 🙂

It won't affect it. It's disregarded. I receive quite a bit more than that and it's never been an issue.

Thanks so much, that's really helpful to know!

As above child maintenance is disregarded in UC.

Spousal Maintenance however is not and I guess there's risk that very large amounts for kids might warrant UC asking questions but not normally I don't think.

Child maintenance can be quite a bit more than the CMS figure and won't impact universal credit. The risk is if your ex decides he no longer wants to pay the higher amount that you have agreed between yourselves and applies to CMS instead. As you're only in the initial stages of separation and he's currently willing to pay then perhaps it is less of a risk.

Obviously, in the longer term it becomes more of a risk because payers don't tend to like paying in excess of the CMS amount once new partners are on the scene, or if they think their ex should be working more hours and supporting themselves more or if for any reason they think (rightly or wrongly) that the money is not being spent on the children.

I did see one case where a guy was paying something like 50% over the CMS amount before the divorce was settled but his ex-wife wanted spousal or global maintenance, which he was refusing to agree to. When his ex was awarded global maintenance for four years he immediately applied to the CMS (as you can for a Segal Order) and then paid all of the excess as spousal maintenance, which not only wiped out the ex-wife's universal credit claim but also prevented her accessing other benefits. Had the ex-wife instead agreed to a lump sum to dismiss court ordered maintenance, she would have been better off. So there is definitely always a risk with these kinds of arrangements.

Thanks all for the advice. This will definitely be short term, he's already backtracking, it's just to help with the mortgage while we work things out, without it being declared as a second payment.

I do have reason to believe there is already someone else involved and there have been plenty of lies so I will be quite amazed if I do receive what has been agreed anyway. 🙄