Ringfencing maintenance

[RingRoad]

Have NCd to be on the safe side. Would appreciate any advice on this please.

DH's exp owes him some money and wants to repay it in monthly instalments. She said he should take it out of the maintenance payment he makes to her each month (which is through a family agreement, not legal/CMS).

DH thinks maintenance should be ring fenced so that it's clear what he consistently pays. He is concerned that his Exp may try to claim he randomly cut maintenance at a later date.

My question is whether he is right to be concerned or as it's a family agreement would be it 'safe' to do this? He has emails from her asking him to reduce the payments but is understandably cautious.

Does she has form for being difficult? I would also worry that she would claim that he dropped maintenance and cause problems later on about this

could your DH put together a payment plan showing how much is owed and how much maintenance is currently being paid, which months it would be less for and by how much and when it would revert to normal amount. and get both parties to sign agreement.

only issue with this really is that maintenanc eis for children and not ex wife so it could be argued that he is taking away from the children

Yes, she does. Says she doesn't want the hassle of setting up a direct debit when he can adjust his. Hinting that the onus is on him if he wants the money repaid.

I would want a signed, notarized agreement laying out the total amount owed, monthly payment amount, start and end dates, and that she agrees with the 'shortfall' to the children and that she will not consider him to be 'underpaying' maintenance.

"He and She agree that She owes He £1000.00. She agrees that He will reduce the normal child maintenance payment of (total usual) by £100.00 each month for 10 months until the £1000.00 owed is repaid in full. This agreement is to start with maintenance payment normally paid on xx/xx/2015, last reduced payment to be xx/xx/2015 or until repaid in full, whichever comes first. She agrees that this in lieu of paying He £100.00 per month as loan repayment and does not constitute a change in the usual maintenance amount, nor that He is underpaying maintenance during this period".

I'd also contact a solicitor as to the legality and ramifications.

He should keep the maintenance dd the same.

Legally, the maintenance is him ---> kids.

Any money being paid for her debt should go her ---> him.

Two entirely different and separate issues. The maintenance has to go into her account for obvious reasons but she's not the beneficiary, the kids are legally.

My husband was in a similar situation and she did claim. It all got unpleasant.
RingRoad and AccrosthePond55 are spot on.

Best if he can keep it separate, and get her to set up a separate direct debit to him. If she banks online already this can be done in about 5 minutes and he could talk her through it if she's genuinely struggling with that sort of thing.

But if she refuses then I'd be inclined to just reduce the maintenance, among with an email confirming why. I'm presuming the debt she has to him is an informal one and probably not one he could enforce legally if it really came to that. Worst case scenario is she goes to the CSA behind his back and he ends up having to up his payments, meaning she still owes him the money she borrowed. But that doesn't leave you any worse off than you are at the moment.

It's not true that the kids are legally the beneficiaries of maintenance. It is legally due to the resident parent. They can spend it however they chose, including not spending on the child if they wish. Morally, or clearly should be spent on providing for the child, but legally it's the parent's money.

I am in a very similar situation but from the other side. My ex pays global period payments monthly per court order, but we have a jointly owned property and we have to pay upkeep. My ex deducts my % from the maintenance. He sends a spreadsheet that clearly shows the monthly maintenance less the upkeep. It is a clear audit trail that protects both of us - the net payment made to me via bank transfer is shown on the spreadsheet. We have solicitors involved on both sides but a notarised agreement?? Even in my situation that would be overkill.

How much money is it ring road? If a few hundred/thousand I don't think you'll get into too much bother. If more, then maybe you need to be more careful. On a side note you are lucky she is paying it back!

Many thanks for all the helpful advice. I don't have high hopes of her repaying anything but DH is going to try the signed agreement. If she signs I will be amazed but it's worth a try! Thanks again.

Who would she try to claim he reduced maintenance to? If there is no legal agreement and nothing at all is done through the CMS then their is nobody to 'claim it's to.

Yes,she could end up putting in a claim to the CMS in the future,but that only starts from the date contact is made by them,it doesn't get backdated to a random date.She could do this at any time in reality.

There is no need for signing anything or to contact a solicitor.

I wouldn't bother trying to make her sign something if you think she's going to be difficult about it. Just go ahead and reduce the payments as she suggested. An email could set out clearly how much and til when.

TrippTrapp and Yellow, you make interesting points - thanks.

I guess DH thinks she would go to CMS at some point and make a false claim. But his bank records would tell a different story. He has always been happy to overpay and never messes her around.

He has already delayed any loan repayments for a year to help her get her finances straight. He didn't expect thanks (and got none) but hoped she would be reasonable come this January.

There is no such thing as a 'false chain's in that regard.

She can go to the CMS at any time she chooses and is allowed to do so.Whether he has paid in the past or currently isn't their business or concern. They just contact and start payments from the present. If that happens you stop paying the other,simple.

Honestly,you have nothing at all to worry about

I see, thanks. If she did that and pushed the payments back up, he'd have to write the loan off, but it's worth a try.

If he has already been paying above the amount he would be assessed at it shouldn't be much of an issue.

But then again,I don't agree that it's necessarily right to deduct it from the maintenance payments in the first place.But if that's what she really wants you to do then it may be worth doing a calculation to see what they would calculate payments to be (can do this online) and if he has been paying more,reduce the payments to pay back the loan in a way that leaves the amount that would be assessed (but only as a minimum,make the payments as fair as possible and don't reduce too much to pay back the loan) and make sure you at least pay that while you are reducing to pay off the loan.

But please don't use it as a means to generally reduce maintenance payments as it really is a bare minimum and would be unfair to do so

Exactly. He feels very strongly about overpaying and always has and I support that. He's not trying to change that.

If he's been overpaying (as compared to what the CMS would assess him to pay) then that's a really easy way to get the loan back. Just reduce payments down to CMS levels until the reduction has covered the loan - simple. And would continue nicely even if she went to the CMS.