[Solved] Child maintenance and contact time

Hello TheVarix

You are correct in your assumption that there is no legal requirement for back-dated payments when setting up a family-based arrangement. If a case was raised with the Child Maintenance Service, your responsibility to pay would start from around the time they contact you.

With regards to the issue of contact, this is a separate consideration from any maintenance arrangement. If you are in dispute with your wife about contact issues, you may wish to seek some mediation, http://www.nfm.org.uk, or legal advice, https://www.gov.uk/civil-legal-advice.

If you require any information about the different ways in which child maintenance arrangements can be set up, you can contact Child Maintenance Options directly, http://www.cmoptions.org

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have a website, ‘Sorting out separation’. It aims to make it much easier for separating and separated parents (and childless couples) to find the support they need, when and where they need it, and encourages them to collaborate on a range of issues. The link is https://www.sortingoutseparation.org.uk/

Regards

William

Hi there

I can’t add to what William has advised on the child maintenance situation, he’s the expert!

As far as contact, am I right in assuming that this all takes place at her mums? If so, that’s not ideal, as it doesn’t really offer you any quality time between you and your son, without you being supervised.

To be honest there isn’t any guidance about what age a child can start to stay over with the non resident parent. As a general rule of thumb, by the time a child is about 18 months old, overnights could be part of the schedule, but this isn’t set in stone and can vary a lot.

It can depend on the amount of time you spent with your child prior to the split, the mothers wishes, and practical things like the type of accommodation and facilities available to you to care for your child away from their maternal home.

It might be helpful if you both completed a parenting plan, to help you decide when these types of milestones are reached, it can also help you both if you have a firm plan in place.

The next option would be to attend mediation to try and reach agreement, if this also fails the mediator would sign the forms to enable you to make an application to,court for a Child Arrangements Order. This is a big step and should really only be taken as a last resort, but sometimes there is no other option.

In my opinion, the split is still really fresh, I would give it some time to settle down, try and reach a good compromise about the financial situation and that might help to stabilise your situation.

If you can show that you still want what is best for them both, and accept that getting where you want to be might take some time and patience, the final outcome may be a better one in the long run.

All the best

Thanks both for your replies. Thanks Mojo for the advice!
The Saturday visits are at my home and the two shorter visits during he week are at her mum's. She refuses to write a parenting plan as her mum thinks it's legally binding (the old witch) and now my ex is against the idea (despite her being the one that suggested it in the first place).
I have a bigger place than her and my son has his own room and cot. The house is baby proofed with furniture attached to walls, etc...
I have requested mediation info but I think I'm going to follow our advice and wait until he is about 18 months old to ask for him to stay over.
Yesterday it was really heartbreaking. I had such a lovely day with him and when my ex came to pick him up, he started to moan and tried to reach with his arms so I could hold him... I told him that I would be seeing him soon and waved good bye to him but it was really terrible and made me feel really sad.

I think you’re right to take the patient approach, keep the suggestion of a parenting plan on the table, and reassure her that it’s purely as a guideline that is reached by mutual agreement and isn’t legally binding.

It’s painful, but it’s only been four weeks since you split, it’s really early days for you and your little one...once the dust has settled, she may be more amenable to increasing your time together. Be kind to yourself, and when things get hard going, keep busy, lots of guys find a good workout at the gym helps.

All the best