How much should he be giving us?

[SprackPack]

H left me and our 2 DC recently. I am clueless as to how much money he should be contributing towards the DC, and whether he should be contributing anything towards the (rented) household bills. Can anybody advise please?

You need to ask to have this moved to the relationships board.

They know everything about this!

Thank you! I thought I'd selected divorce/separation!

It depends on his income and if he has the DCs overnight.

Are you working?

If you are renting he won't need to contribute to household bills as you can claim benefits towards that if you have no income.

He will need to pay you child maintenance.

So for an example this is my situation - I'm a single parent of one child living in rented accommodation. I work part time and I get working tax credits, child tax credits, child benefit and a small amount of housing benefit to help with bills. My ex has DS overnight 3 or 4 nights a month. He earns a salary of £50k and pays me £500pm in maintenance.

Have a look at the child maintenance calculator and bear in mind that that is the minimum payment.

How much does he earn a month?

Thank you wax that's very helpful!

I work 30 hours, and am now receiving UC.

He doesn't have the DC overnight but will once lockdown allows (I am dreading this )

For now he comes to visit the DC

It's a good idea to go on the maintenance calculator so you can see what he should be paying. It is the bare minimum though so if he is a decent guy he should offer to pay a bit more (which my ex does) unfortunately a lot of men can be a bit tight regarding maintenance!

If he’s seeing the children he can have them overnight, rules allow for children moving between parents homes

He is currently living with his parents and siblings and their partners, some of whom are still working (and some of whom are not following lockdown guidelines at all), so we both agree that overnights are best to be avoided in current circumstances

Agree with others - use the cms website to workout what he should pay as minimum

Do you have any assets at all to split ? Do you know what he earns ?

He should be having the children overnight

You haven't said what he earns so impossible to say without that figure as a starting point.
It's not always easy to get maintenance though.
My husband left 2 years ago and I haven't received a single penny since for our 2 children or anything towards the joint mortgage.

For 2 children cms is 16% of his income before tax and national insurance. But after pension contributions. This then goes on a sliding scale depending on the number of nights the children stay over. So goes down by 7th for each over night a week. Also if he lives with other children this is taken into account.

Cms have a calculator. Make the call today. And get the ball rolling. Then you don't need to have awkward conversations about his income further down the line. They will adjust the amount accordingly. Assuming he doesn't go self employed like mine did 🙄

No he is legally only obliged to pay cms. Fingers crossed for you he does the right thing.

Thank you unicorns that what exactly what I was looking for in terms of guidance!

He will definitely pay it, and more i expect...mostly out of guilt

Use This, it's the gov calculator

www.gov.uk/calculate-child-maintenance

Thank you, will check it out!