CSA payments- what extras are expected?

[mummynumber2]

I know this is a very emotive subject and I really have no intention of offending anyone or starting any arguements!

Firstly I'd like to say that I really do want to financially support all my DSC's but would just like some advice on what to do in this situation.

At the moment DP is paying aroung about £700 p/m in CSA payments. It's never been a fair assessment but we've given up arguing and are paying over the odds. Before christmas DSD1 moved in with us and we carried on paying the same amount to his ex,she's also getting the child benefit ect for her. We also tend to have DSD2 and DSS slightly more than the CSA assessment. We pay for everything for DSD1 and have everything that DSD2 and DSS need here for them here. We've also bought quite a lot of school uniform for them too, which never seems to be returned to us!

We're just about coping financially at the moment but it's tight.

Now DP's ex has announced that we should be paying for all school uniform, dinner money and half of all school trips. She seems to think this is the norm.

The thing is, she's not that badly off, she works, has huge CSA payments and lives in a council house which she pays very little rent on. I'm sure she can afford these things.

What I was wondering is if there are any guidelines as to what should be paid for from maintinance to children and if anyone is in a similar situation.

Both DP and I are very cautious of rocking the boat with his ex so would like to handle this sensibly!

You do not have to pay a penny more than the CSA assesment.

You have every right to contact the child benefit office and tell them DSD1 is living with you and then tell the CSA the same thing so your payments are reduced to the correct amount.

I know how difficult it can be to prove overnight stays and its an agrument dh and I have given up having with the CSA so we to are resigned to paying more than we should.

We used to pay for trips, uniform etc but now ex has become to take it for granted and we can't afford it or her demands we pay the CSA payment and no more. We do give DSD pocket money to spend on herself though.

Anything above the CSA payment is your choice and she has no legal right to ask for more.

Sounds like you are being more than fair tbh and the ex is taking advantage

The ex is taking advantage. Call ftc and cbenefits, as well as csa and get the money resolved properly then pay no more than you have to - 700 pounds is a LOT so she should be fine on that.

If your dsd is with you full time then your husband should ring the benefits agency and let them know as the child benefit should now go to him.
It also determines whether or not your husband pays maintenence to his ex for the eldest child. As the child benefit for the eldest is still going to her the CSA generally assume that your dsd is still living with her, therefore if you stop paying her maintenence for the eldest chilod it can be classed as arrears and then the CSA get quite shitty.

So, I would start by changing the child benefit as long as you are certain the move to live with you is permenent.

With reference to having the children more than the stated overnights, I don't think there is much point in arguing that one unless it becomes 50% or more as it doesn't make a huge difference and you will be reducing the maintenence anyway once the CB is sorted out. It wouold probably be more hassle than it is worth.

School uniforms etc is tricky as it will be contentious.
I would pay for all uniform for the child who is with you full time and pay half for school dinners, trips, any other miscellaneous school expenses.
Your maintenence is to pay towards a childs food,clothes and any household bills that arise from having a child live with it's main carer such as a portion of the gas and electricity bills as well as the increased rent/mortgage that arises from having to house more than one person.

It is not supposed to fully fund a child as the CSA recognises that the person paying maintenence will still have to provide for the child when they are staying/visiting with them and also, the main carer will be assumed to have an income, whether they work or receive benefits they will still be expected to contribute to their child.

I think you will probably have arguments about this , we did and we still pay well over what we are required to pay but ultimately your finances have a limit.

Thanks bythemoonlight and prettyfly1. She is taking advantage and I know we should be paying a lot less. The problem is it's just so stressful to take on the CSA and her. We've been there before and it nearly broke up DP and I and caused a lot of stress on the DCS's.And all it acheived was less contact with DSC's. Unfortunately for her this backfired as in the end as DSD 1 decided to spend more time with us.

Bythemoonlight - how did your DSD's mum react when you said you weren't going to pay for anything else? I actually worry that DP's ex just won't pay for school trips and uniform at all if we don't.

Thanks for your reply oiteach. I actually don't have a problem at all with providing more than the CSA payments, especially while the DSC's are with us.

We didn't go the the CSA and benefits agency when DSD moved in as we didn't want to risk upsetting their mum, which would probably result in less contact with DSD2 and DSS. But you are right. Ultimately your finances do have a limit, and I'm fairly sure we've reached in now!

Your attitude is amazing as you are in my opinion being fleeced.

You do not have to legally pay a penny more than the CSA assessment. Your DP's ex is living in cloud cuckoo land.

As someone who recieves child maintenance I would never, ever expect anything above the agreed amount.

I understand that you want to keep the peace so that things remain good for the children, however, by allowing her to continue claiming benefits she is not legally entitled to, and by keeping the maintenance amount as it was even though one child now lives with you, you are sending signals to her that say it's fine for her to keep making these ridiculous demands.

Good luck whatever you decided to do.

I'm not sure amazing is really the word. More resigned, weak even, or maybe I've just learned that to keep any kind of sanity in this situation you have to just go with the flow!

But anyway, yes, I feel some boat rocking about to happen!

I accept no maintenance for my dd at my suggestion so am happy with that so have no axe to grind.

I think you should pay as much as you can afford to for your step children, or more correctly your husband should pay as much as he can. If that is more than the CSA arrangement then so be it. Of course legally she has no right to more but there is a moral element here as well.

If I could afford to help my family out I would also not be happy with them using up a council house if I could pay for them to live in private accomodation.

If one of the step children lives with you the mother should not be claiming any benefits for him, you should be if you need them.

I think you have to absolutely do what feels comfortable for you. Obviously there is no right and wrong.

Personally I would never dream of asking ExH for a penny more than the amount the CSA would order him to pay (we don't have any contact with the CSA). DCs are both our responsibilities - I mean I fully expect to have to substantially contribute towards their care. It isn't his responsibility to provide me with money, so if I can find the money for the things I need, I see no reason why he should be asked to give me more. The alternative would be that I ask him for more money so that I can spend more of my money on myself iyswim.

If I didn't have enough money I would have to somehow find a way to earn more...it wouldn't be up to my ex to provide me with it. He is, after all, my ex. I do however sometimes answer questions like, 'can we go on holiday to Florida?' with, 'I'm sorry, we can't afford it - maybe your dad would take you?'

I'm not sure why he would give me money towards their school dinners. He already pays maintenance which goes towards me feeding them, and it's my choice to give them dinners rather than sandwiches. Don't suppose anyone'd ask for a few extra quid each week for bread for sarnies! Likewise school uniform. Maintenance goes towards clothing them.

But as I said at the beginning, there is no norm. The above is the situation I set up with my exH, and the one which for me is right, but is very different to the one DH has with his ExP.

I am shocked at how calm every1 on here seems to be!! My husband has a son with an ex and she is constantly stopping us from seeing him to try and get more money from us (she even said she would ruin us).We live together with my 6year old son who has additional needs (autism and dyspraxia) We are a 1 income family (my husband works-im meant to be finishing a degree) and only bring in 12000 a year-wich is less than what his ex gets-she's on benefits and gets everything paid for. The CSA are wanting £40 a week off us which is half our rent!! Do any of you know if the CSA get any easier to deal with-they just don't seem to care what they do to the family who have to pay. We are now in the situation where we are payingcourt fees to fight for contact to be reinstated as well as paying this £40 a week and I don't know how we are going to manage.

Im in a similar situation to the OP, we pay over the amount which we would be allocated by the CSA but husbands ExW is constantly asking for half of everything else. She firmly believes, and has said its DH responsibility to provide everything for his children and not hers. We just cant afford it anymore and are going to have to do something about it. Like many of you though, we get threatened with not seeing the children.

My ExH has always provided fairly for our DD but I have never expected him to pay over the odds. He actually pays less than the CSA would award but pays for half of trips, uniforms etc, which works out better for us.

I am utterly amazed at the women who believe the ex partners are just a meal ticket and they have no financial responsibility for their DC.

OP I think you are being taken for a ride.

Whoa...uh shouldn't you guys be getting the CB at least for the child that lives with you?

My ex and his partner pay me £30 a month towards my son and I buy pretty much everything for him....clothes, haircuts, shoes etc. Have yet to discuss school uniform stuff but I would like them to go halves with me on it since the sweaters with the school logo are pretty pricey. Other than that I pay for most stuff because I receive the CB and tax credits for him, not them. As I understand it those benefits are supposed to be towards buying things for your children. CB is over £80 a month, surely she can afford to pay for school things out of that?

As far as I understand it the money that the CSA asks for is for maintenance and to provide for the child(ren)...so this should really cover things like school dinners and so on. And if she cannot afford it on £700 a month thats either some pretty poor money management on her part or she is trying to take you for a ride.

I agree with alot on here, this is a very sore subject in our house, however you should not pay a penny more than what is asked of you by the csa. And also you should contact them and let them know that there is a change in circumstances with the child living with you.

I would say that it is both the responsability of each parent to pay towards their children, I do feel that the csa is very one sided when it comes to the assesments.

Also, it is against the law for someone to claim child benefit for a child who is not living with them.
I would get that bit fixed straight away. It's not a case of if you "need" the child benefit either, it is yours to claim, as the child lives with you (and therefore should be spent on the child).

We get this too.

DP pays CSA amount (actually more than he should know DS and I live with him).

She is constantly demanding half of everything including toothpaste and snack bars for DSD's overnight trip!

DP agreed to pay half of "extras" like school uniform and clothing etc. at the time of divorce, she has since decided that he is "not allowed" any of her clothes at his house and he has to provide his own and still pay for half of school uniforms, school trips, clubs etc. He seems to think it was mentioned in the divorce but please correct me if I am wrong that it is only the CSA that has jurisdiction over such matters and unless it's spousal maintenance (which it isn't) he is not obliged to pay a penny more than CSA assessment amount?

He's not obliged to pay a penny more. No. He can chose to, but that's his choice and ther is no obligation.

Re clothes, my dh's ex even used to make the children strip off on the doorstep of our house in full view of the neighbours - yes, really, because she didnt want any of "her" clothes in our house.. Can you believe it...

I can well believe the stripping off story! For goodness sake!

What gets me is she is allowed to be so petty. If the kids need something from her house while they are with us, it is us that have to drive them to her, she refuses to come to our house ever. All their homework is left until the weekend and if it doesn't all get done, she tells us what bad parents we are and that it is neglect and she will stop us seeing the children.

If they have a birthday party to go to on our day, ex makes sure that they have no present or card to take and the kids aren't allowed to bring the invite so we know what times etc., so we buy and pay for it, we pay for school dinners on our day and any other school fee letters that seem to appear only on our days. We pay full fee for the clubs they attend on our weekends and we don't ask for half of any of this because it seems so petty and I'm sure she would tell the children that too!

Oh my goodness, you are ME!

That is my life you are describing....

Do you also get "I have to get football boots and shinpads for school on Monday and Mum said you'd get them"?

Oh yes, only we have to buy our own football boots for DSS!

But yes, we recently got "it's easier for DSD1 to stay at home with me on Friday night as she is going out early on Sat morning".

Then we are told last thing Sunday night that we have to go to Mum's to get the school stuff we would have got if she had brought it to us on Friday night!

So who exactly was it "easier" for?

If we didn't go, we would be the baddies for neglecting the kids and making them go without things in school. Nothing to do with her laying in bed all morning while me and DP do 3 school runs for 5 kids and both go to work too!

And us. Poor DP ended up having to buy shoes at Tescos 8am one morning as SS was going on a school trip that day (leaving at 9am) where they had been asked to bring proper walking boots and he came to us the Friday eve with a pair of trainers which were falling apart... You can't make it up sometimes.

Libby,

I feel your pain. lol

She loses school uniform, swears we must have it and then refuses to buy kids any more so kids get letters home about lack of suitable kit and she forwards them onto us and tells us she hopes DP is happy!