CMS payments with 50/50 shared care for kids

[MyCandidTiger]

Hi,

My ex and myself are currently going through separation. We have 2 children under 9 and I was a stay at home mum for the past 8 years. Last year I got back into full-time work and this year we are separating.
We want to share custody and time with kids 50/50, which led me to believe I have no entitlement regarding CMS. I ran the CMS calculator and it told me even with 50/50 shared care for the kids he would still need to pay £457 / month.

He earns triple my salary and said: " if his finances allow he can support me". He thinks he doesn't need to pay anything.
I spoke to a family solicitor and they said legally it would not be enforceable for him to pay any CMS if we share 50/50. He said I should reconsider our 50/50 arrangement, which I don't want as it feels unfair to the kids and him. I want my kids to have equal time with both of us but my ex wants to split child costs 50/50 which is not sustainable for me given I earn 3x less.

Was there anyone in a similar situation and how did you solve this?
What's the legal situation here?

The calculator is not accurate in cases of 50:50 care.

No maintenance is payable.

The calculator isn’t accurate. Do not believe it over your legal advice.

If he earns over the CMS threshold of 156k then you can go to court to claim maintenance in a 50/50 case, but it’s not common unless you’re talking a really huge amount salary wise and it’s not as common as it used to be.

Legally you’re each responsible for your own costs when the children are with you.

what costs is he expecting to split 50/50?

He earns roughly 90k and I only got back into full-time work last year as I was with the kids. I'm on 29k currently.

Birthday parties, birthday gifts, clubs. Right now while nothing is finalised we are splitting them 50/50 but this is not sustainable for me

Are you married?

I suggest that you each organise your own birthday celebrations as you can afford, buy your own birthday gifts, and try to agree on clubs that fit into your budget.

If he wants them to go to horse riding lessons and you can't afford that, you can say that you can't afford to contribute and if he wants them to do those lessons he is going to have to pay the full cost.

For birthday things if they are going to be split 50/50 then they need to be costed to your budget, not his.

Clubs should either be the same and costed to your income or you pay for any clubs you book on your days.

No, not married

That's unfortunate. It's never wise to give up your career outside of marriage but what's done is now done.

50:50 will at least give you the opportunity to increase your earnings. £29,000 isn't terrible though and your kids won't be destitute living with you, although no doubt they'll have more luxuries at their Dad's.

I don't quite understand how this works in reality. I have been the primary carer for the past 8 years, I literally manage everything from school communications, to play dates to birthday gifts to school runs to medical appointments. Only literally since the beginning of this year does he participate in any of it, as he knew we would separate. How can he prove he is doing 50/50 equally when he has never done it?

It will be based on overnights. They don't care what happened before or in the marriage, the claim will go on what is happening at the time it's made.

If you try to claim via CMS, they'll look at who gets the child benefit.

If he then decides to challenge you for one of the child benefit payments, which he probably will, they will look at a few different factors to determine if it really is equal shared care (but if the nights are equal, it's a high bar to prove you "do more").

You will almost definitely end up losing one of the child benefit payments and having to pay back any maintenance paid up to that point.

I think use his language back at him, you'll do 50:50 where finances allow. So you might not be able to afford some parties, presents, clubs etc. And it will be up to him if he decided to continue or not.

You’re both responsible for the kids, it’s not based on who earns what, if it’s 50 50. You’re responsible for all your own costs and 50 percent of children costs. So when they are with you you live to your budget.

I don’t think anyone will object to that.

Wouldn't be the bar high for him to prove he does all of it?
He earns too much to get child benefit, he would need to pay it all back.

He doesn’t need to. He just needs to care for the kids 50 percent of tne nights.

I’d not worry about this at this point, he’d have to pay it back. Would be pointless/

I have 50/50 but am the higher earner although not that significantly. We did the odd shared party but now do our own things same with gifts. Weekend club we split but if on our own day we cover ourselves but I have helped on occasion. School trips we share but holiday clubs we pay our own days

Doesn't matter in the slightest- they will still award it to him if he can prove he has 50% of the care of the children.

Yes he will, but he can still claim it in order to prove to CMS that he has 50:50 care. All he has to do is show that he has 50% of nights. Maybe if you could show that you were looking after the children until 7pm every night then dropping the off to him 50% of the nights simply to sleep, they would say that's not shared care, but I've not encountered any situation yet where the parent having 50% of nights has not been considered an equal carer.

CB does not care in the slightest bit if he has to pay it back or not and won't even consider it as a relevant factor.

That doesn’t matter.

Do not fall into the trap of think that getting child benefit automatically means entitlement to child maintenance. The calculator is inaccurate because it uses the crude tool of CB=CM. It is wrong, as you legal advice has already told you.

Anything historic doesn’t matter. If he is doing 50/50 nights now that’s what counts for maintenance.

Yeah it seems really frustrating that he now claims 50/50 time and got to advance his career while I looked after our family. I guess family court would be a next step up considering the history of our arrangements.

It would not be pointless for him if it gave him proof of 50/50, as CB awarding one child each on the claims (the common way of dealing with 50/50) as it would save him the money in maintenance as that would be proof none was due

OP family court for child arrangements is utter hell. And unless there are significant safeguarding concerns they will award 50/50.