[Solved] Child maintenance service

As you are finding out, the system is built heavily against fathers, I fell so sorry for you in the instance, you've tried to do the right thing for your daughters over the years, and now it is being used against you....

Firstly I would look at the CMS calculator to find out if the figure is true, they have most likely used last years end of year tax figure (2017 - 2018) to calculate your maintenance. If you are within 25% of this figure then you will not be able to get this adjusted.

Without a court order you are going to find it hard to prove that you have your kids more than your ex says. As you have them 50/50 have you thought about getting one child benefit in your name and one in the mothers? This would effectively cancel out any maintenance.

You are not responsible for any other costs by law other than the maintenance you will pay. It is supposed to cover costs such as school trips etc.

I'm ending by saying you sound like a superb father to your children, you've always provided for them when they have needed it. I wish you luck in this, and hope you dont get screwed over too much. Get in touch with your MP if you are having a lot of trouble.

Hi there

I think being in receipt of child benefit is pivotal to CMS’ decision on primary parent status. Even if income exceeds the amount where you are no longer entitled to it , I think there’s a way to get some form of written authorisation of that, it might be worth checking with the child benefit office about what they can provide to show that you it’s only the amount of income that precludes entitlement.

If the children are registered with school and GP as living at your address that should help. It might be helpful to read the sticky about CMS rules and regulations, there’s a section in there that talks about ‘special cases’, which I feel could apply in your case.

Here’s a link

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2012/2677/pdfs/uksi_20122677_301114_en.pdf

Part 4, chapter 4, Special cases. There’s a small reference to child benefit status at the bottom (4.)

Best of luck

Just to mention... I’ve deleted both duplicate threads, it’s not a good idea to have identical threads running simultaneously, it can get confusing!

Apologies ...it kept saying there was a problem didnt mean to post 3 times :whistle:

Hi Yoda

Thanks for your reply

I wonder if I now make an application for Child Support after all this time the CMS will look at the history of this as see this move as a little late in the day? As its 7 years since I could have made that application? It was part of original mediation notes

Would those mediation notes help me? I still have those (from back in 2012) These were used to create a consent order (purely dealt with financials)

As you say, if I do end up paying her, I think I could legally stop paying for School Dinners, Clubs, Trips etc- which I have worked out - is more than the CMS are asking me to pay so she will end up worse off

she is banking on the fact I wont let them go without and if she doesn't use the money for this Ill end up bailing them out

Hi Yoda

Thanks for your reply

I wonder if I now make an application for Child Support after all this time the CMS will look at the history of this as see this move as a little late in the day? As its 7 years since I could have made that application? It was part of original mediation notes

Would those mediation notes help me? I still have those (from back in 2012) These were used to create a consent order (purely dealt with financials)

As you say, if I do end up paying her, I think I could legally stop paying for School Dinners, Clubs, Trips etc- which I have worked out - is more than the CMS are asking me to pay so she will end up worse off

she is banking on the fact I wont let them go without and if she doesn't use the money for this Ill end up bailing them out

Hi Yoda

So the CMS haqve reconsidered my case and say below :

We have now looked at the whole decision again, reviewing all the available evidence.
In this case we found that the original decision was correct. As a result, your child maintenance payments
will not change. You can see the payments you need to make on your latest payment schedule.
While I realise this may not be the outcome you were hoping for, I can assure you that we checked our
facts thoroughly and considered all the available evidence when looking again at our decision.

Since I posted this - my daughter has been diagnosed with Scoliosis. I have paid £666 towards her treatment and her mother nothing. Now Im having to pay CM back dated to start of Feb.

This just seems so unjust. I sent them a calnedar showing them the nights the girls stayed with me in 2018, which ended up over 200 nights.

They obviously dont believe me and solely relied on the Child Support factor

Very frustrating indeed

Hi Yoda

So the CMS haqve reconsidered my case and say below :

We have now looked at the whole decision again, reviewing all the available evidence.
In this case we found that the original decision was correct. As a result, your child maintenance payments
will not change. You can see the payments you need to make on your latest payment schedule.
While I realise this may not be the outcome you were hoping for, I can assure you that we checked our
facts thoroughly and considered all the available evidence when looking again at our decision.

Since I posted this - my daughter has been diagnosed with Scoliosis. I have paid £666 towards her treatment and her mother nothing. Now Im having to pay CM back dated to start of Feb.

This just seems so unjust. I sent them a calnedar showing them the nights the girls stayed with me in 2018, which ended up over 200 nights.

They obviously dont believe me and solely relied on the Child Support factor

Very frustrating indeed

I have 2 children, one who lived with me, the other her mother (my ex). Although care amounted to 50/50 because each child spent more time with one parent than the other the CMS made separate calculations. I'm an easy to assess PAYE employee my ex an accountant with several businesses and overseas dealings. She received a nil assessment....

After 3 years progressing through the tribunal process (and all this time being subject to a DEO) the tribunal agreed with all of the information provided and assessed me to due £15,000 in arrears. By this time though my ex has transferred her businesses to her sister and claims to be living on benefits. The CMS refuse to collect or offset these arrears against my ongoing liability and continue to use a DEO to take money from me to give to her despite the arrears owed.

I have complained and complained, written, sent recorded delivery and still get nowhere.

To top it all, after a subject access request revealed that my original DEO was never issued to me, only my employer despite complaint responses claiming it had. A blatant lie.

Any advice? I can't keep paying and ignore the arrears. So unfair.

Hi there

I wish I could offer practical advice, but I don’t have a great deal of knowledge in this area of family law.

Is there another tier of tribunal that you can raise it to?

It might be a good idea to involve your MP and ask them for help in dealing with the CMS, as you have followed the complaints procedure he can refer your case up to the Parliamentary Omsbudsman.

I feel for you. Best of luck

In my case, I believe unusually, the CMS ruled in my favour.

My ex wrote to them and said I was not having my child the minimum 52 nights per year. This was not true and designed to gain her more child maintenance(or rather see me have less).

So I received a letter from CMS asking for any evidence to prove my statement. The previous month my ex in one of her rare communications to me, wrote to demand certain things and within the letter wrote 'if you do not agree to this we will stick with the 24 hours per week that we have done for the last years'.

CMS took this as evidence supporting my assertion.

So I can only recommend, if you have something similar in writing or can communicate with your ex and hope to get something similar, this could do the job.

I hope you both get lucky.