[Solved] 50/50 Equal Shared Care

other dad here made good suggestions. seems its so hard to get 50/50. instead of that just ask for more days like fri-mon, wed-thu every week. if judges/cafcass are sane, you may get it.

I only asked for 1 additional day per week which would effectively mean I would have my child more than she would. That's how close it is to equal shared care already! But she knows what she is doing.

I have exact 50/50 child arrangements in place.

I am not exaggerating when I say it took 20 phone calls, 4 letters, and then a threat from me to CMS to get them to agree that I should not pay anything.

Trick is to keep on quoting the legislation, provide the court order, and repeatedly asking them for an update.... and finally, state payments will stop unless CMS can direct me to the legalization that says otherwise.

Hi Hubs,

Thanks for reaching out. I'm glad you got your case sorted.

This is what I need to get, a 50/50 arrangement and I'm kicking myself for not going for it the first time I took her to court. Now I'm going to have to go back and pay to take her back with a hope of getting 50/50 shared care.

She is currently receiving nearly £400 monthly and as you know the more I make the more they take and I just don't understand for the life of me how it costs that amount to raise my child per month, it wouldn't even cost me that.

I'm frustrated because I've done everything the right way and even took her to court so I could get a court order and I still feel as though the system is so unfair and now I want to have my child more, my ex thinks she can say no! (money on her mind). So while she is living up life with benefits, her work salary and my payments, I am here getting to a point where I have no spare income, its absolutely not right!

Then I still have to fight an unfair battle in court AGAIN in the hopes of getting equal care of my child.

I have exact 50/50 child arrangements in place.

I am not exaggerating when I say it took 20 phone calls, 4 letters, and then a threat from me to CMS to get them to agree that I should not pay anything.

Trick is to keep on quoting the legislation, provide the court order, and repeatedly asking them for an update.... and finally, state payments will stop unless CMS can direct me to the legalization that says otherwise.

I have 50/50 shared care but I still pay an amount of maintenance to my ex as she has included the shared care child in her claim.
My understanding is that under this scenario, I am responsible for the general day-to-day living expenses for when my child is with me (i.e. housing, food), whilst my ex is still wholly responsible for the non- day-to-day living expenses of raising the child, i.e. school trips, school uniform, winter coat, etc etc and it is these expenses for which I am paying her the maintenance money.
Only if all child expenses were shared and time spent equally with each parent would there be no valid claim for maintenance.

That is my understanding however please feel free to correct me.
In my experience the whole issue of exactly what expenses the maintenance payments cover is very vague and hard to get an unambiguous answer on.

If you share the care of the children equally

If you share care equally, neither of you has to pay maintenance to each other.

If the CMS believe you share care equally, they won’t do a maintenance calculation.

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/family/children-and-young-people/child-maintenance/child-maintenance-2012-scheme/child-maintenance-calculation/the-2012-child-maintenance-scheme-calculating-payments-shared-care/

Ok, but there exists the possibility of a child being included in a CM claim under a 50/50 shared care arrangement. The maintenance system allows for that. So they are part of the claim and monies are payable.
Which means that under this arrangement there are at least some expenses that are deemed payable by the receiving parent only. I.e. a CMS ‘equal’ shared care arrangement does not mean that ALL costs in respect of the child are shared. It just means that the child spends equal time with each parent.

If ALL expenses are shared then yes I agree there is no grounds for a claim and the child would not be part of one.

At least that is my understanding, though I agree that the CMS are not particularly helpful in stating exactly which costs are shared and which are to be borne by the receiving parent only. From my conversations with CMS the paying parent in an equal shared care arrangement is responsible for housing and feeding the child when the child is with them, and anything else regarded as day-to-day living costs in that time. However things outside that definition, such as school fees, pocket money, school uniform/shoes etc etc are still payable by the receiving parent - and that is why there is still money paid to them by the other parent.

However please correct me if I am wrong on this.

hi yes i have been doing searches about this and it mentions off-setting amounts and all sorts. too annoying to read.

I think the best thing for me to do is to take it back to court and highlight the following:

- I would like shared equal care (I'm literally 1 day off per week as it stands now)
- I would like to shared the costs of the things my child needs such as school clothing - this is the only thing at the moment that isn't shared and even then I still go out of my way to buy my child school items when needed.

My solicitor always told me that 50/50 is very difficult to get, that courts like the child to have a base with one parent or the other... is this true?

I would love 50/50

I think that is sound advice he's given you - as said on the other thread, you could try for that at mediation as a starting point to try to increase your current level of contact.

I've just submitted ANOTHER C100 application. I'm sure it used to be £220 and now is £215 - £435 in total, hopefully I don't have to spend any more after this, fingers-crossed!!

Does anybody know of any reasons the court would not agree to a shared, equal care?

As I was submitting the application, I was also looking for the legislation and found the following:

https://www.nacsa.co.uk/equal-shared-care - Interesting read and sounds like what I am attempting to go for.