Child maintenance if 50:50 custody

[RoseWrites]

I'm looking for some solid mumsnet advice, please :)

My husband has children from a previous marriage. The agreement during the divorce 10 ish years ago was for 50:50 custody (verbally agreed, no court involved). However, over the years, one of the children has wanted to spend more time at her mums. This has led to years of DH trying to cajole, convince, and entice her to spend more time at our house, which sometimes works, but often does not. When it was particularly hard, we suggested mediation or child therapy to which BM said "only mental people see a therapist", which put an end to that.

So over the years, we - me and DH and all the children - are used to DD coming some times, leaving when she wants, etc. It hasn't been perfect, but when she comes she's happy, so it feels like an imperfect compromise.

However, BM is now saying we owe her a backdated 5+ years of child maintenance. I'm all for mothers being well supported (I grew up in a single mum household), but I'm unsure if we/DH owe her when we have always wanted DD here 50% of the time like the other children?

I was wondering whether we revisit the mediation/therapy route to revive the 50:50 custory agreement? Or if there is something else we can do?

Thank you in advance for any help or advice :)

I guess he does pay "maintenance", but not formal "Child Maintenance" as sanctioned by a court. Maybe thr formal route is the way we go to work out what is fair all round.

No he doesn't owe her. Clearly there was informal agreement and mum didn't ask for it previously. Realistically she would have been entitled but she can't suddenly decide 5 years later she wants backpaying. Child maintenance does need to happen going forward.
Use to calculator to work out what needs to be paid.

Lots of people don’t have child maintenance sanctioned by a court, if things are amicable then quite often people just take a look on the calculator and send that amount each month.

Have a look at what you should be paying via CMS. If that amount is significantly more than whatever contribution your partner has been making for the last 5 years then although legally she likely can’t come after you for it, I would feel morally that I should be sending her something to compensate for that.

Most people don’t pay maintenance through a court, it’s still maintenance. And yes use the CMS calculator to work it out. I wouldn’t back pay 5 years either though.

Really? £10 a day. What's she eating?

I thought it stood for ‘Baby Mumma’ 🤣

@femfemlicious
Absolutely normal healthy stuff. Nothing out of the ordinary. I guess I was including toiletries etc in that. But I spend about £200 a week on food/toiletries for the 3 of us, which on any 'how much do you spend on food' thread, is bang in the middle. She will eat a piece of meat per day, plus a couple of punnets of fruit, so really not hard to get to £10. I guess it would be less if you had either a vegan diet or highly processed. Much more if she had dinner at school.
Just thinking about it now, £10 a day, is £3500 a year so £17,500 food bill over 5 years! And that's not even thinking about showers/electric etc

Wow, my 2 12 year old girls spend about £100 on EVERYTHING . food, cleaning, toiletries, laundry etc.

He should have been paying it. However there is no legal route for his ex to get it backdated now if she didn’t go through CMS to begin with. I’ve been through this as I discovered ex was lying about his income for years but there was nothing I could do.

Refuse, she should have got her act together and requested at the time.

As for CMS it gets back dated from the day she makes a claim. It doesn't get back dated further than that.

Child maintenance usually comes as a covers all costs, which means, uniform, phones, etc would be paid for by mum out of it.

Or - a decent NRP might have said at the time 'here's £x towards dds food'.

Legally correct is not the same as morally.

Or her partner should have got his act together, you know AS A FATHER, and sorted out how much he should be paying towards the life and maintenance of his child as soon as it stopped being 50/50.

And all crappy RP would ensure the children did not spend the 50% with the NRP so they could get more money.
See how it works both ways? Mind-blowing, I know

What a strange reply this is, OP said in her post that DD changed her mind about coming and didn’t always want to go. And if the RP in this instance was trying to ensure the child didn’t spend 50% of their time with the NRP for the sake of getting more money, don’t you think she would have applied for CMS err I don’t know, 5 years ago ?? She’s picked up the slack financially for 5 YEARS by having her child for more than 50% of the time, if it was about the money she could have put a claim in 5 years ago and would have received CMS for that whole time

@Mrsttcno1 My response was a comment on the usual MN assumption that only dads can be crappy parents, never mums.

So has he paid or not? You seem to be saying he has been so I can't see where the problem is in going forward paying at least the CMS figure.

Your DP really should have started paying about 4.5 years ago, as soon as it became apparent that 50:50 wasn't going to happen. Him wanting more contact doesn't pay for her upkeep.

Legally, she won't be able to get it backdated but she can put in a claim now, to get the money going forward. TBH I think he's pretty scummy not to have offered.

Okay @Katypp I don’t dispute that mums can also be crappy parents, but child maintenance isn’t really the best vehicle with which to make that argument. If one parent is getting child maintenance, it’s because their child is with them for a higher % of the time than they are with the other parent. It’s to cover the additional amount that they spend by having that child a larger proportion of the time. It’s not money for nothing and often it doesn’t even cover the additional amount that parent spends by doing the lions share of the providing for them.

Ffs I am not saying OP's h is a crappy dad- I wasn't thinking that all. She hasn't said if dad has the child 6/14 days or 1/14 days so I do not really have an opinion on how much he sees his dd. Most NRP aren't crappy ime but the crappy ones are a big minority.

I was commenting on the bit about who pays when dc chooses not to attend contact. A NRP or RP could claim that they would have had the child so shouldn't have to pay/be paid. OP is married to a NRP, if she was married to the RP then the focus of the replies would be about why he didn't claim
5 years ago.

If she was to go to the CMS - child maintenance service (formally csa), any child support due would start from the day she made the claim. They would not back date it. So you don’t need to pay her 5 years back pay, however despite you wanting her 50/50, the CMS would base the amount (if any) due of the number of nights a year she stays with you. So yes if she stays more nights a year with Mum there will likely be some support due.

Late to the thread, sorry. But whilst children may well have some say in the decision making process 11/12 year olds cannot decide within a court environment. Contact orders end at 16 years old which is indicative of what the court feels is correct. If it was 11, my poor gs would have saved himself a good few miserable contact years!

As for CM, contact CMS (good luck with that). They can advise you as to the correct amount or use their online calculator. They go by overnight stays with a starting point of 52 nights per year when you get a limited reduction in CM. As for the backdating, if it is not registered with CMS, then she is out of luck op so do not worry. If however it is registered at CMS and a case opened, they will only look at backdating from the date you tell them CM has stopped or been reduced.