DO NOT pay the maintenance. They aren’t your kids, they aren’t your responsibility and you’ll get no thanks for it.
My OH paid £795 maintenance for 2 kids and had done so for 8 years, never paid late and never missed a payment.
He was made redundant (informed the EW) and kept the maintenance at the same level for 4 months (while out of work) while he looked for a job. When he couldn’t afford it - I stepped in and paid it (more fool me). I paid £795 for 3 months - to a woman who refers to me as ‘her’ and has alienated her own children against me.
He got a job and asked the CMS to revise the payment. They advised he should pay £400.
He gave his EW 3 months notice that the payment would reduce and between us we paid the higher amount for a further 3 months.
4 months later when the payment is about to reduce she stopped contact & the children weren’t allowed to speak to their dad (they were 11 & 14 at the time).
The kids text my OH and said they couldn’t text or call ‘as daddy didn’t pay for them’.
She demanded £795 and wrote to my OH saying ‘the kids were pay to see’.
He has a contact order, but she stopped contact and wouldn’t let the kids come or speak unless he paid the £795.
I should add this is a woman who refused to work until the kids were 10 & 13 and now works 16 hours PT.
My advice would be, don’t pay, you won’t get any thanks and woman like this will use their own kids as pawns and to bully to get their own way.
In our case it went to court for breaching the contact order, she got a slap on the wrists (as usual as the penal notice at the back of the contact order isn’t worth the paper it’s written on) but contact did eventually resume.
Woman like this have no values. Hold your head up high and let her pay for her own kids.