CMS - ex claiming he pays maintenance for other child he lives with

[hm1610]

I've just received my recalculation of CMS for this year which has been reduced due to my ex apparently paying maintenance through a 'family based arrangement' I.e. without cms involvement for another child however the only other child he has is with his partner who he currently (and always has done since said child was born) lives with.

Am I correct in thinking that maintenance is only paid when 2 parents are no longer together and therefore for him to claim he is paying maintenance for his other child isn't correct in terms of CMS calculation terms?

I'm in Scotland if that matters

You can reduce maintenance if you live with another child. They take 11% off the gross. If that sum doesn’t work out I wonder if they are saying (or have) separated and whilst living in the same house aren’t in a relationship anymore.

Yes the living with other child was always declared on my initial CMS claim, its now that ex (according to CMS) now pays another maintenance payment as though they don't live together I assume?

They very much still are together, live together and always have done and I suspect this is a false claim he's made to CMS in order to reduce the amount he pays to me for our son.

I called them to query it and they told me the 'case worker' had verified the information to be true however I've asked for this to be further investigated as I know for a fact its not true - my son goes there every weekend and he'd tell me if that was the case. I have ok'd 'enforcement' as asked by the person I spoke to if it came to this.

Ex also claimed to have him for the higher banding number of days per year, again I suspect to reduce payments he would be due to pay.

This has all stemmed from me requesting collect and pay method due to repeated missed payments and not wanting to have to contact him directly to be told multiple different excuses.

There proof is usually because I said so do challenge them on that

My ex got away with paying benefit rates while he was working he told them he was still unemployed and they checked a few days after he started work so it wasn't showing up on hmrc yet they refused to check again for a YEAR they kept badgering me about "his overnights" wanting me to confirm it I said never they mithered at me if I was sure I said as far as I'm aware he doesn't even live locally so how would he have overnights of school age children? (More mithering) DS! when do you stay with your dad? "I don't even know where he lives? What?"....erm OK we will ask if he has real evidence for that....

Well this is the thing I assume the 'evidence' will be bank statements of him transferring partner money and claiming its for maintenance but she doesn't work and hasn't done their whole relationship so I'd expect he would do that anyway however that doesn't necessarily count as 'maintenance'!

They live together in what was her house prior to being in a relationship which I know is a council house so I wouldn't be surprised if she claims to live alone and it's covered by UC.

I have no issues with ex or his partner at all, we are divorced now but I'm not just going to accept that £25 a week is the legitimate amount he should be paying for our son when he earns (assumption on my part here) at least 35k per year as an HGV driver.

Could he have another child you don't know about? Although, trying to pay less than he should seems most likely.

No, we were together for 10 years from when he was 19. He's been with his current partner from around 1 year after we separated, I'm close with a lot of his family still (some of them closer with me than they are him) I'm fairly certain I'd know if he'd fathered another child and dont believe this to be the case. I'm about 99% certain it relates to the child with his current partner.

Report them as living together to UC.