Financially scared

[Lala1980]

Please say I'd this is the wrong thread. DP has 4 kids. 3 live with mum 1 with us, contact agreement in place and DP pays his ex correctly.
DP is on a low wage and most of his money goes to his ex. I am on a good wage so pay for us Inc. resident DSS which is fine. I changed jobs recently and have just found out unexpectedly I am pregnant so I will only be entitled to SMA not SMP.
Now terrified how we will make ends meet as I am the breadwinner. But ideally I would love some time with my baby before being forced back to work for financial reasons then would come the scary question of financing childcare...
NB DSS is 15 so we don't have childcare costs for him.
Any suggestions?

If DP is paying correctly then "most" of his money shouldn't being going to his ex unless he is paying spousal support as well Child Maintenance?

If it's court ordered then perhaps it needs to be reviewed...

Thank you I will check. My biggest concern is the drop in my income as I provide for us. DP's wage really is nominal.

I believe CMS is 20% of pay for 3 or more children??? The fact one lives with you means that the amount he pays is adjusted downwards? When you have another child to support it would be adjusted further.

Perhaps the issue is that your DP needs to try and get better paid work?

How much do you really know about his finances?

When your dc is born his cms to ex will reduce as he will have a new dependant.

Watch out for the fall out tho she won't be too pleased I would imagine. .

Sorry I forgot to mention he has one other child he pays for from a teenage 1NS.
I will go through both our finances with a fine tooth comb.

My question is will I be entitled to ang other benefits because I work full time?

There is still a maximum %age of his salary that goes on CM and it is nowhere near "most" of his salary! I am very suspicious if he has claimed most of his salary goes on CM...

Does he not think he needs to be able to afford his existing DC before having more?

Yes you need to go through finances with evidence of everything.

You may be entitled to some Tax Credits but that depends on total household income etc. as does housing & council tax benefit etc. You will get Child Benefit for the baby too.

^ this. My ex thought he could pay me less because he and wife are having a new baby. Turns out he can't. Men need to make sure they can afford the kids they already have before they start having more.

Run everything through cms calculator then look at ww.entitledto.co.uk to see what you can claim

Can I just reiterate this was unexpected?!

Oh he is very good at making children isn't he? Not so good at making the money to support them it seems.

FYI most of his money isn't going to his ex. If he has told you that, he is lying.

I get it was unexpected, Lala, but there are two sides to this situation, and I'm currently on the other side with my own ex. With that many kids with his ex, the amount he pays her won't drop just because you and him are having a baby. That isn't how it works. He won't, however, be paying over half his salary to her right now unless a) it's a private arrangement or b) he pays her spousal maintenance. You need to be finding out from him which it is.

The other thing to point out actually- if DSS lives with you, presumably his ex pays maintenance to you for him?

PP who said the maintenance owed won't drop is wrong. It will drop not by masses but it will. Run it all through the CMS calculator. The cold hard fact is that yes you will be mostly solely supporting yourself and this child. If his salary is nominal it may make more sense for him to do some of the childcare rather than use a nursery. That would drop his salary though and the CMS payments even further so don't expect to be popular with his Ex partners.

upside I've just had a thread about this- I'm the ex in Op's scenario. CSA is irrelevant to me but I was advised it stops dropping after the 4th child. After that, no matter how many kids a man has he pays the same to his ex.

Gaelic I've just run it through the CMS calculator and it does indeed drop it when you add in the new baby as living at home. I believe it's that you don't get paid more past 4 children so if you had 6 or 4 it wouldn't change the payment but I could be wrong.

I forgot to say the most important thing - congrats on the baby!

Thank you Daisy. I'm so excited but want to be practical. DP is a good man I promise. Yes he has several kids but has never been errand or not paid for them.

Trying to make sense of this now- again, Csa means nothing for us but I put it in there just out of interest. I have DD who is with ex EOW, Ex has two kids with OW, new baby on the way and OW has 3 other kids who live with them. CSA said I wouldn't get any less with the new baby, but I may have done it wrong.

In this situation if I've understood correctly, there are 5 kids with new baby. 2 resident with new baby, 3 with ex.

Gaelic I think the reduction only counts resident children for whom you receive child benefit, up to 3 kids. So the OP's partner will actually be able to reduce maintenance despite having 5 kids and another on the way, as shocking as that is, because only 2 will be living with him. In your case they have well exceeded 3 resident children so no further reductions will be made.