Anyone else here with Shared Residency (equal) New CSA rules means finally no maintenance!

[pennypinchingnamechanger]

DH and I found out a few weeks ago that once his case with CSA is passed to CMS and goes into CS3 he won't be required to pay maintenance any longer.

His dd is with us half the time and we share all costs equally with her mum. Yet her mum gets Child Benefit, tax credits and maintenance from DH. Anyone else in a similar situation and looking forward to it changing?

Yes I think we might be, we have dsd 3 nights 4 days sometimes 4 nights. I don't know if her mum claims anything as she has her own business and they had an agreement between themselves.

Dh is now thinking about putting the money ex gf would get into an account for dsd when she turns 18.

Do you mean you don't know if his e gets maintenance off of him?

In order for maintenance liability to be nil you have to have exactly equal shared care. If most weeks ex has 4 nights and you have 3 that's not exactly equal I'm afraid.

On the new CMS system that it, on the old CSA system even exactly equal shared care one parent pays

It's strange the new system because it makes a huge difference if you have than 6 nights a fortnight (so have to pay) or 7 nights and post nothing.

There is still the sliding scale so if one parent has the children 6 nights per fortnight then their maintenance liability is greatly reduced.

One parent paying the other maintenance is fine when that parent uses the money plus the Child Benefit to vmcover some costs such as uniform, school trips etc. My other half's ex wouldn't pay for them to have uniform here and I e didn't pay half for a club activity or school trip she's absolutely happy to not let DSD participate and will tell her it's cause daddy won't pay. So he's been paying maintenance, has her 50:50 and been paying half of everything. :(

With 6 nights a fortnight it's reduced by nearby 50% but there's still a big jump between that and 7 nights a fortnight which is zero

It kind of makes sense if in all situations of less than 50-50 care the RP pays all the big costs (clothes, school trips, etc) as well as the day to say costs. But in a 50-50 shared care set up everything is split 50-50. But otherwise I can see three being lots of disputes of dads claiming it's 50-50 and mums saying no it's just under 50-50 as there's such a sudden drop in maintenance.

My other half pays CSA to his ex but has his son 50/50. Its ludicrous as she uses emotional blackmail and he ends up paying for other things on top. She earns a lot more than us but is merely making the most of a flaw in the system. It is very wrong and as a result it causes animosity. We want the system to change quicker than it intends too, but I understand the people with more than 1 child under the CSA rules with 50/50 care will be changed first. As he has one child with his ex then we will be the last to be changed over. We have read as late as 2017 which means another 3 years of CSA payments to put towards her new car! We have written to our MP and commenced an E petition.

I don't know how I feel about this. My ex and I have 50/50. I could have claimed CM on the old system but chose not to as didn't want to profit from him but had recently been considering it because although he technically has her 50% of the time, he doesn't have 50% of the costs and I'm getting sick of it.
I think usually there is one parent who spends more because of old habits (we used to be 20/80) or because they are the more organised one. I'd rather have CM than have to go cap in hand every time I want reimbursed for half of something or have to discuss every purchase upfront so he can decide if he deems it necessary etc.
Saying that, when we had dsd 50/50 her mum was claiming £900 ctc, 80 cb, £450 CM and we still covered all the major costs or they just weren't met. So I see the other side too.

I agree, Happybeard, I'm not sure that 50/50 means that there is always an equal split of costs. It certainly didn't happen in the 18 months my ex and I shared care. All it meant was him putting food on the table half the week, nothing else. I paid for everything that went on outside the home - school uniform, shoes, school trips, childcare etc. EVen now, I pay full-time childcare because he can't be trusted to keep to 'his' time with the children and make alternative arrangements should he be unable to pick them up for some reason.

There is also a need to think about large differences in income between parents, particularly where a decision was made for one parent to stop working for a number of years. It might be an extreme example, but a top-class businessman earning a 6 figure salary should surely be expected to contribute more to the joint child 'pot' than his ex wife who works as a TA, for example.

Yes that's a good point too. If you break up and the kids are tiny and you've just got the one or maybe two it's a bit different but where sometimes ten years or more have been taken out of a career in good faith that one partner is a high earner and will support, that high earner should be liable for CM even where 50/50