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Reporting a concern
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Report child abuse or neglect to your local council
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Hi There,
I currently pay maintenance for my 18 year-old daughter. Her grandad (whom she had been living with) had applied to the CMS and I had been paying him the amount they had specified, for over a year. Sadly Grandad passed away at the beginning of March, and my daughter turned 18 in April and has now moved into a flat on her own. She is currently studying at college at secondary education level.
I received a letter from the CMS stating that they had been made aware that Grandad had passed away and that no more payments were due. I have already agreed with my daughter that I'll continue to make the payments directly to her until the end of the college year - which I'm happy to do. However she is now considering doing a further year of college - which I assume still counts as secondary education - am I legally responsible for still paying maintenance to her?
I spoke to the CMS, and all they would tell me is that I could stop making payments now - but not whether someone could (successfully) apply for maintenance payments sometime in the future - which makes it a little hard to plan my finances for the immediate future.
If anyone has any experience/knowledge of this kind of situation, I'd be very grateful.
hi,
I take it the grandad was claiming child benefit?
you could stick with CMS advice, but continue to make payments direct to daughter. generally child maintenance stops when child leaves full time education. there is possibility that e.g Mother could open CMS case, and then they tell you to keep paying.
@bill337 Yeah, Grandad was claiming CB. I've spoken to the CMS a couple of times again and they've advised that - as there isn't a CB claim - there's no maintenance due. They also said the mother could open a CMS case - but only if the child was living with them - which she isn't. I've explained this to the daughter - and she's fine with it - I'll still help her out, but the mother had promised her that she'd be getting the CMS amount until she was 20 - despite the fact that the mother isn't paying her any regular sum - it seems to be only expected of the Dad in her eyes!