Is child maintenance based on court ordered days or actual days

[Itissunnysomewhere]

ExH in court order has the children about 40% of the time. In reality over time he has them less and less. He's always working away, although the pattern is unpredictable.

I don't want the faff of changing the court order, and I am happy having the children more (and they seem relieved to not be with him as much -he's very controlling)

But I am not sure whether CMS will vary the payments on the basis of an informally changed pattern? Or is it based on the court ordered agreement?

I'd let them know he's not adhering to the order but they will take the easy way out if they can. You can apply for a variation.

It's nights rather than days, but as long as you have proof eg a text, and you both tell them the same thing then they'll accept it.

I'm not sure either but what I definitely would do is mark off on a calendar all the overnights he has them.
Once you can show it's dropped down a bracket you can show the evidence to CMS.

Ah that's helpful. Yeah he's going away for long stretches (several weeks at a time). I wouldn't mind about the money except that to manage it alongside health issues I have had to drop a day a week of work, so there is a real financial hit to me. I managed to work full time only because I used to have rest days

Also,. sorry,.can I do this any time or is it only at the annual review? (Because of course he only messaged me about next year after that date had passed!)

You can ask for more - he should be paying full time for the weeks he doesn’t have them.

Totally unfair on you, whilst nice to have the kids, not only are you losing it you are also losing out having to feed them on his days.

I don't want to push him to have the children more, they are happier to be with me more and they have said as much. He was abusive to me so this doesn't suprise me (Cafcass thought the sun shone out of his bum though)

I forget the numbers, as we are in the first one - under 52 nights, despite having a 50:50 court order - but there are brackets of nights to fit into for the different amounts of CM. I just wrote to them with a list of nights he’d stayed, a couple of texts that supported this and they asked him if it was correct, then changed the amount.

Ah thank you!

If it’s longer than a year since the original Consent Order, I think you can just bypass court and go through CMS with updated info.,,

Raise a change online and report the number of nights he is now having the children. If he agrees the payments will be changed in accordance. If he disagrees with what you report then the court order will be used.l and payments won't change. They won't use spreadsheets or texts messages etc. it's either by mutual agreement or a court order that's legally binding. If he disagrees you may need to get the CAO changed.

Ah that makes sense, thank you

Ah that sounds trickier as he's not the kind of person to agree to anything 🙄

It could well be. Have a look and see if the number of nights (including any extras) does actually make a difference to the band for shared care before you raise it just in case it doesn't make a difference

The prior post about bypassing court and going straight to CMS would only apply if your Child Maintenance was done via consent order and is more than 12 months old (so you don't have an open CMS case already) if you already have an open case, it makes no different and it will be decided upon as I've explained.

Nope they go off court order. My ex doesn't have the kids much but CMS say I have to go back to court to get the order changed because they follow the order. I had loads of messages showing all the times ex cancelled more than enough proof he's not having the kids but CMS don't care. And of course no court will reduce contact because of maintenance so I've just had to accept it.

Only way to do it would be to ask you ex to pay more informally. But if he's o ly paying CMS I'd guess he won't want to as most decent men pay over CMS if they genuinely care about their kid. But be ware then ex can take his bank statements to CMS as evidence he overpaid and had credit. I made this mistake when I left my ex when pregnant he upped the maintenance when baby born but I never told CMS then at review he shows them the bank statements and got 8 months of credit knocked off his payments as he had been paying more than the alloyed CMS. Child's birth certificate was not enough and the wanker gets away with not paying for his kids

Our court order is about a decade old now I reckon,.we split when the children were tiny