[Solved] Can my ex force me to pay?

Hi and welcome.

Firstly, maintenance and contact are two separate issues. If you want to get contact on a proper footing, then the first step needs to be mediation (www.nfm.org.uk) and if that fails, then you are looking at going to court for a family arrangement order - you can do this yourself in which case the only cost is the application order (£215 I believe still) though if you are on benefits, this may be reduced or waived.

As for maintenance, yes she is able to go to the CMS and open a case, and you are required to pay maintenance - take a look at the calculator for the amount, but it's based on your earnings. She can't force you to put money into a trust fund, and there should be no police involvement, so I'm not sure why she's trying that.

If there is doubt that the children are yours, then you can ask for a DNA test, but you have to pay this initially and if it proves that they are not yours, then the CMS should refund the cost of the test, and your liability for maintenance stops at that point.

Hi Matt

Thank you for your post. I am William the Child Maintenance Options consultant. I will provide some information that may help answer your questions during this upsetting and frustrating time.

I can confirm that actd is correct in stating that child maintenance and contact are not linked in law. So even if your contact with your twins is reduced or stopped, child maintenance may still be payable. Any contact issues will need to be resolved separately, either privately or via a legal route. You can also use third parties, such as professional-trained mediators to do this. If you have any questions or concerns around contact, you may wish to get in touch with the Centre for Separate Families as they are experts in family separation ( http://www.separatedfamilies.info). You may also wish to seek legal advice to discuss your contact rights. If you do not have access to a solicitor, you can contact the Citizens Advice Bureau as they can provide information on legal topics ( http://www.adviceguide.org.uk).

If you would like to know more about getting added to your twins’ birth certificate, you can find more information on Gov.uk at https://www.gov.uk/adding-fathers-name-birth-certificate.

You may also wish to know that child maintenance is a contribution towards the cost of bringing up a child and this includes not only such items as food and clothing but also it is a contribution towards the home that the child lives in and the associated costs of running that home.

With regards to how child maintenance can be paid, there are a number of options available to parents. One of the most popular ways of doing this is to agree child maintenance privately with the other parent via a family-based arrangement. With this type of agreement, there are no strict rules to stick to. The main thing is that both parents are in agreement and the arrangement remains amicable.

A family-based arrangement does not need to be all about money, although many parents do include regular financial contributions. They can include other kinds of support, such as you directly paying for things that your twins may need or you placing money into your children’s trust fund if both of you can agree to it. Although family-based arrangements are not legally-binding, many parents prefer them because they are often the most flexible way of agreeing child maintenance as they can easily be reviewed. You can find more information on family-based arrangements on our website at http://www.cmoptions.org/en/family/index.asp.

If you feel that you are unable to speak to your ex-girlfriend directly, you can use a third party such as a trusted friend, family member or a mediator. If you feel mediation may help you agree on a suitable arrangement, you can find more information about this process on our website at http://www.cmoptions.org/en/separating/about-mediation.asp.

We have a range of tools and guides on our website that may help keep your family-based arrangement amicable ( http://www.cmoptions.org/en/toolbox/index.asp). These include our discussion guide which can help you prioritise the issues that you wish to resolve with your ex-girlfriend and help you plan conversations around child maintenance. We also have a family-based arrangement form which is not a legally-binding, but if used to write down what both of you have agreed, it can help to formalise your arrangement.

In terms of guides, we have a Managing Conflict with your Child’s Other Parent Guide which could help you if you are struggling to resolve specific issues or make decisions to help you reach an agreement for child maintenance with your ex-partner. We also have an Information for Parents Living apart from their child guide which not only provides tips on how to keep an amicable family-based arrangement in place, it also provides information on the other option for child maintenance.

To give you an indication of how much child maintenance that may be calculated if you were to use the Child Maintenance Service, we have an online calculator on our website at http://www.cmoptions.org/en/calculator/. You can use the figure provided when negotiating a payable amount of child maintenance for your family-based arrangement.

If you feel that a family-based arrangement will not work, either your ex-girlfriend or you can make an application to the Child Maintenance Service. The paying parent does not need to be listed on the child’s birth certificate to do this.

If the person who is asked to pay maintenance denies that they are the parent, the Child Maintenance Service classes this as a disputed parentage case. If a claim is made to the Child Maintenance Service, they will ask the person named if they accept that they are the child's parent. If they deny it, the Child Maintenance Service will look into the reasons why and ask them to provide evidence to support their denial. They will not ask them to pay child maintenance until the dispute has been resolved. You can find more information on the disputed parentage process on Gov.uk at https://www.gov.uk/child-maintenance/disagreements-about-parentage.

The Child Maintenance Service uses two schemes: Direct Pay and Collect and Pay. Both schemes are legally-binding.

Direct Pay is where the Child Maintenance Service will provide both you and your ex-girlfriend with a child maintenance calculation and then allow both of you to decide the payment method. After this, the Child Maintenance Service will make no further contact unless they are informed that payments have stopped or if there is a change in either of your circumstances.

You may be interested to know that the Government have introduced a £20 application fee to use the Child Maintenance Service. This will need to be paid by the parent making the application. The best way to avoid charges is to agree on a family-based arrangement and not use the Child Maintenance Service at all.

Under Collect and Pay, the Child Maintenance Service will calculate and collect payments from you and then forward them on to your ex-girlfriend. If you decide to use the Child Maintenance Service, as the paying parent, your responsibility to pay will be from around the point when you are contact by the Child Maintenance Service.

For parents using the Collect and Pay scheme, the Government plans to charge collection fees to both the paying and receiving parent. This is for collecting and passing on child maintenance payments.

Under the Government’s plans the paying parent would have to pay 20% in addition to the weekly maintenance payment and the receiving parent would have 4% taken away from the weekly maintenance payment.

The Child Maintenance Service can only confirm your actual collection fee amounts after you have applied to the Child Maintenance Service and you will only have to pay collection fees if you are on Collect & Pay, after fees are introduced later this year. You can avoid collection fees entirely by using the Child Maintenance Service's Direct Pay service. Enforcement fees have also been introduced to paying parents that do not pay.

If you decide to make an application to the Child Maintenance Service, you will need to contact us first either by telephone or email, for your unique reference number. This number is personal to you. It is unique and shows that you have spoken to Child Maintenance Options before applying for a statutory child maintenance arrangement. You can find more information about using the Child Maintenance Service by visiting the Government website Gov.uk at http://www.gov.uk/child-maintenance.

If you feel that none of the above options will work for you, you could consider a Consent Order, or a Minute of Agreement if you live in Scotland. Both of these options are official rulings made by a court. To arrange a Consent Order or a Minute of Agreement, both you and your ex-girlfriend will need to agree how much child maintenance will be paid and how often before going to court. This type of agreement is usually set up when both parents are going to court for other reasons, such as arranging a divorce or dividing assets. Arranging a Consent Order can be costly as fees for solicitors, mediators and court costs may apply.

For more information on the ways to set up child maintenance, please visit our website at http://www.cmoptions.org. Alternatively, you can call us free on 0800 988 0988 between 8am and 8pm Monday to Friday or 9am and 4pm on a Saturday. We have a sorting out separation web-app that you may find useful. It offers help and support to separating and separated families. The link is: www.dad.info/divorce-and-separation/sorting-out-separation.

Regards

William

@Child Maintenance Consultant i am struggling with the CMS at present. i have not seen my child in 13yrs and the mother of my son is pushing the CMS to carry out her bidding with regards additional payments. It is so difficult to contact the CMS also as at present trying to sort another issue out and i have been on the phone for nearly an hour. could you answer the following for me, i am on an annual salary of under 40k once my pension, car allowance is removed and i am expected to pay 955 per calendar month. i do not think this is correct. also why is the calculation of your gross salary and not your net income. your net income is what you would be left with even if the child was living with you. That is your disposable income. i am at a loss as it seems i am being bombarded by the CMS and the mother of my son for monies that i cannot clearly afford. i go into my overdraft every month trying to make ends meet and what sort of life is that to lead. can you help.

@midcowman Hi I have not seen the child maintenance options person post on here for a very long time. with your salary CMS will assess based on your gross income, minus your pension contributions. As far as I know benefits in kind like company car/allowance are still included in CMS calculations. do you have any arrears to pay? I did a quick check, and if your paying for 1 child, CMS take 12% of gross pay. so for £40000 salary, that works out to be £400 a month. You may want to speak to your HR/Payroll people for a full breakdown of your income, and then cross-check with what CMS are calculating. do you pay by direct pay method, or collect and pay? CMS may be basing your assessment on an older tax year. they should base it on your most recent tax year. can you try find out which tax year they based it on. If you are earning 25% less than what they are assessing you on, they should recalculate maintenance based on your current salary.

@bill337 thanks for that. i pay 388.11 for one child. i do not get to see him and he is 13 now. i pay direct pay. but CMS have just hit me with a payment plan where my original payments above have increased 246 %. How is someone on <40k supposed to afford to live and pay that, how can this be justified. I have just spent two hours on the phone and even they agreed it needs to be sorted, but my ex has asked for it to go to direct pay. thankfully you can challenge this, however online which becomes a faceless, unfriendly process. hopefully this will be resolved within 48hrs when they contact me.