[Solved] Cafcass Recomendations & child maintenence

Hi
The courts take advise of caff cass and from what i believe the verdict will lay very heavy on the caff cass report.Due to csa calculation are on over night stay it may be suggest if you child has his own bedroom with you he could visit grand parent in the day and returned home in the evening to his own bedroom.
There could obviously be special days where he stayed away such as birthday or family related events but the normal pattern of care would be the child did not stay over night at his grandparents.But even if this is arranged with a court order getting, the csa to take the order into consideration can be a issue but dont start me of about that one.
If you want any advise on the csa let me know i have had over a 18 month battle with them.
Good luck

Can I ask why the S7 recommends one night with you and one night with the grandparent? This is something you can challenge in a statement (when one is ordered) or during the hearing. Is the recommendation a permanent one or could it be suggested as a progression, dependent on the reasons for it being recommended.

Hi Yoda,

Long story short - Stepson lives a 2 hour drive away, grandparents used to collect on behalf of his dad on Fridays from school before contact stopped, they did this for 6 years but stepson always stayed all weekend with us. Grandparents then would always be around at weekends monopolising time with us and taking over and it ended up with a falling out.

Stepson states he still wants to see grandparents (obviously and we have never stopped this) when he is with us at weekends as they live around the corner. This is no issue but obviously the time doing this would not include my husband or us.

S7 recommends grandparents collect from school as previously and he stays there Friday night. This never happened before, he was always dropped with us at bedtime. We want him to stay over with us but have no issue with a bedtime drop off so we can do things on Saturdays early doors and he is with us for this. Stepson wishes to stay with us but the S7 does not state this.

We also want flexibility on Fridays for example if we go on holidays for a weekend, previously they would collect from school and drop him off for say 5-5.30pm so we could go away. So a bedtime drop off or overnight stay would also put a stop to this.

So I guess we need it in the order 'to be agreed between parties maybe?

Hi, the courts don't always necessarily stick to the CAFCASS rec's and you will have an opportunity to challenge this point and give the reasons.

Who are the applicants and respondents in this case and is are the grandparents you refer to, the maternal or paternal?

It's likely the court will view the grandparents having contact with your step son favourably, particularly if they are willing to undertake all that travel to facilitate it.

With regard to weekends away, its probably worth being specific in your requests to court as 'as agreed' maybe ambiguous if no agreements have been reached before and may result in further issues.

If you want to go away could you not suggest that you will do the collection en route to where you're going for example?

Thanks for your reply Yoda.

They are paternal grandparents.

We are all for the grandparents having contact this is no issue and something we support.

What we want ideally is him being collected us at bedtime on the Friday rather than staying over and my stepson has said the same but that is not in the report.

Plus it affects child maintenance payments as that goes on overnights which we always previously had. We don't want to state this though as I think it will look like it's about money which it's not but it is unfair that maintenance will increase and the child is not with his mother on those nights!