Child maintanance is a joke

[LucyLeah]

Does anyone know if I can challenge child maintanance my ex is paying for our child, 4yo. He is angry man, so trying to punish me for split etc. He is paying minimum 260£ as per gov, he is living at his parents for free. I pay for school clubs because working full time , all expenses like petrol, driving to school and back etc etc he only takes his kid maybe once a week, not even for a night. Can I challenge it? I don't want to waste my money , going courts etc if I can't get anything more that 260£. Any ideas? Anyone in the same situation?

If that’s what the gov CMS calculator says he has to pay, and he’s paying that, then there’s nothing you can do to challenge it unless you believe he is earning more money than he says. His outgoings make no difference whatsoever, you can’t challenge it unless he’s not paying the amount the government say he has to pay. Sorry though it is a joke what dad’s get away with! X

Try getting £7 a week for 4 kids 😒 and he doesn’t even pay that! id happily take £260 a month for one kid. If thats what the calculator says then that’s what he pays.

Is that the CMS figure or a private arrangement? If the former you can’t do anything. It’s a % of his income and his outgoings are irrelevant.

That's terrible... yeah that's all he should be paying according to cms...

It's cms unfortunately. He won't pay more.

Ah then yeah that’s all he has to pay, there’s nothing else you can do to make him pay more. The only thing you could do, which some parents do but is dependent on the kind of relationship you have, is asking him to pay extra for half of things like uniforms/school trips etc on top of CMS but you can’t force him to, so if he doesn’t want to then he can just say no.

No you can’t challenge sorry op, that’s the amount based in his income that’s supposed to be his share of the exclusive child related additional costs . If he’s a low earner it’s not great.

CM is a flat percentage of income- his circumstances are irrelevant