Welcome to the DAD.Info forum: Important Information – open to read:
Our forum aims to provide support and guidance where it can, however we may not always have the answer. The forum is not moderated 24 hours a day, so If you – or someone you know – are being harmed or in immediate danger of being harmed, call the police on 999.
Alternatively, if you are in crisis, please call Samaritans on 116 123.
If you are worried about you or someone you know is at risk of harm, please click here: How we can help
Hi, I have three children, 15, 18 and 20. The 15 year old is at school, the 18 year old has just started an apprentership and is earning and the 20 year old is at university, the youngest two live with there mum and stay with me periodically, what percentage of my net income should I be paying in child maintenance?
I'm pretty sure the apprenticeship doesn't count, so you should only be responsible for child maintenance for your youngest - that will be 15% of takehome pay under CSA2 (ie after 2003) or 12% of gross under CMS, depending when the CSA case was opened. I'm not sure what the figure was for cases prior to 2003.
Hi Cwraag
Thank you for your post. I am William the Child Maintenance Options consultant. I will provide some information that may help answer your query.
Under the statutory rules, regular child maintenance payments must be made until a child is 16 years old, or 20 if they are in full-time, non-advanced education (A-level or equivalent), or for as long as Child Benefit is being paid. You can find more information on the statutory rules on when child maintenance ends on Gov.uk at https://www.gov.uk/when-child-maintenance-payments-stop. You can also find more information on how the Child Maintenance Service and the Child Support Agency (CSA) work out child maintenance on Gov.uk at https://www.gov.uk/how-child-maintenance-is-worked-out. However, please note that the information for how the CSA work out child maintenance is based on the 2003 statutory rules.
With regards to your current child maintenance arrangement, if you have a family-based arrangement in place, there are no strict rules to stick to. Therefore, you and your children’s mum have the freedom to decide the terms of your own arrangement, such as how your child maintenance will be calculated. This is because a family-based arrangement is not legally-binding and there is no involvement from the courts or the statutory child maintenance services. You can find more information on family-based arrangements on our website at http://www.cmoptions.org/en/family/index.asp.
If you have a case in place with either the CSA or the Child Maintenance Service, you will need to contact the respective organisation who is managing your case to discuss your query. This is because we are a separate organisation and do not have access to your case information. You can find the relevant contact details on any letters that you may have received, or for the CSA, by visiting Gov.uk at https://www.gov.uk/child-support-agency.
Where child maintenance has been set up using the courts, in the form of a Consent Order or Minute of Agreement if you live in Scotland, you will need to review the terms and conditions of your arrangement to clarify how your child maintenance will be calculated. To do this, you may wish to seek legal advice.
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
Welcome to the DAD.info forum.
We don’t like to set ‘rules’, but to make sure that you and the other dads are kept safe, we have some requests. When engaging with the forum, please be aware of the following:
- The forum is not moderated 24 hours per day.
- Many of the moderators do so on a voluntary basis. Whilst they may be able to provide some guidance, advice or support, they may not be able to deal with specifics.
- We are not an emergency crisis service so if you or someone else is in immediate danger, please call emergency services.
- If you are concerned about the safety of a child, please click here to find the support you can get for them (link to new page)
- If you are in crisis, please call Samaritans on 116 123. They are open 24 hours a day, 7 days per week.
We hope you find this forum a supportive environment and thank you for joining us.