Child Maintenance - Where to start? Help please...

Hi @MartG, if your ex-partner has moved out without telling you (or the children - subject to their age) then that certainly doesn't constitute 'reasonable behaviour' in light of the children.

I would recommend you making a claim to the CMS (to be on the front foot), especially if you're the one having to pick up the day-to-day living tab of the house and associated bills. If your ex is on the mortgage (i.e. you're both on the title deed), she would be expected to continue to contribute her share of the mortgage even if she isn't living in the property. Those on the mortgage have a legal responsibility to the lender for the duration for mortgage.  A mortgage company is a secured creditor.

Even if you have 50/50 shared care, your ex-partner's liability (subject to personal circumstance) will be Band D (receiving a 4/7th deduction). The only time this changes is if your ex can prove that she has 'equal shared day to day care' (ESDTDC), which is different from shared care (which is banded), or has another child with a new partner (without tempting fate).

ESDTDC comprises:

- Where the children go to school and who is the main contact

- Where the children are registered with a GP

- Where the children are registered with a dentist

- Overnight shared care (number of nights)

- Recreation activities (including holidays).

The CMS looks at the above criteria to decipher whether shared care is equal (insofar of 'day to day care') or not. Even if the non-claimant (e.g., your ex) has the children 50% of the time (but does not have the main input in other activities), they will still be required to pay a sliding scale of maintenance (most probably 4/7ths).

The only grey area is if the children attend a private school; and the payer of the tuition fees is not the main point of contact. In that scenario, it is likely to fall in the favour of the main point of contact with the school, not the bill payer. However, as it's contract law, it could also be assessed on who is named person on the contract with the school.

I hope this is of help.

Hi,
I would first suggest you try make private arrangement with her. You can use CMS calculator as guideline: https://www.gov.uk/calculate-child-maintenance

Firstly i'm sorry to hear what she's done, the fact you are amicable towards her in spite of her actions is testament to your character, whether it's just for the kids or not that's great really.

If she's agreed informally with you shared care get to the CMS asap to express her desire and wish. Evidence it best you can with number of overnight stays, day time care, school runs, any outside of school activities, dentists, gp appointments etc anything you do with them to bulster your case. With my experience once I proved the number of nights i have my kids they then started talking about these other things such as dentist appointments etc. 

I was about to go down the court order route, MIAM first of course with my ex when she buckled and admitted to the CMS i have the kids more than she would accept to them and begged me to keep our voluntary arrangement in place (interesting they weren't interested in the fact she provided false information) So i would highlight to your ex how prepared you are and how the evidence will stack up, you can do joint mediation under a government voucher scheme at the minute but don't mention that just the initial costs and explain that's money you could both use for yourselves and the children.

If the CMS agree to shared care both ESDTDC then in theory you could apply to have the child benefit paid to both of you for one child each, this would adversely affect her, provide her reassurance you wont do that if you don't need to to curry favour because should she want to make a universal credit claim she wouldn't be able to state the dependants on that also so again it has implications further down the line. 

anything you do between yourselves voluntarily make sure to get paper copies of bank statements sent to you so you can upload them to the CMS as they will be keen to see it. 

to reduce payments further you can increase your pension contributions as they are literally the only thing the CMS care about beyond your basic earning. They don't care how much you have to pay out in bills and other things before they look at your situation. Drive home the point with her anything you have left after your outgoings goes towards the kids anyway so anything you don't pay through cms doesn't detract from money available for the kids and make sure she knows that if you have to pay anything through cms then everything you'd expect to cover with child benefit and cms payments like school uniform, dance classes, football boots whatever it is will be covered by her and though you can't control what she spends her money on make it clear you'll never be contributing towards school trips or anything under the "that's what the child maintenance if for." 

hopefully this will be enough to make her think this isn't the best way forward, if you can get any form of agreement from her under this then yeah go get it stamped as court order to protect yourself. 

Firstly i'm sorry to hear what she's done, the fact you are amicable towards her in spite of her actions is testament to your character, whether it's just for the kids or not that's great really.

If she's agreed informally with you shared care get to the CMS asap to express her desire and wish. Evidence it best you can with number of overnight stays, day time care, school runs, any outside of school activities, dentists, gp appointments etc anything you do with them to bulster your case. With my experience once I proved the number of nights i have my kids they then started talking about these other things such as dentist appointments etc. 

I was about to go down the court order route, MIAM first of course with my ex when she buckled and admitted to the CMS i have the kids more than she would accept to them and begged me to keep our voluntary arrangement in place (interesting they weren't interested in the fact she provided false information) So i would highlight to your ex how prepared you are and how the evidence will stack up, you can do joint mediation under a government voucher scheme at the minute but don't mention that just the initial costs and explain that's money you could both use for yourselves and the children.

If the CMS agree to shared care both ESDTDC then in theory you could apply to have the child benefit paid to both of you for one child each, this would adversely affect her, provide her reassurance you wont do that if you don't need to to curry favour because should she want to make a universal credit claim she wouldn't be able to state the dependants on that also so again it has implications further down the line. 

anything you do between yourselves voluntarily make sure to get paper copies of bank statements sent to you so you can upload them to the CMS as they will be keen to see it. 

to reduce payments further you can increase your pension contributions as they are literally the only thing the CMS care about beyond your basic earning. They don't care how much you have to pay out in bills and other things before they look at your situation. Drive home the point with her anything you have left after your outgoings goes towards the kids anyway so anything you don't pay through cms doesn't detract from money available for the kids and make sure she knows that if you have to pay anything through cms then everything you'd expect to cover with child benefit and cms payments like school uniform, dance classes, football boots whatever it is will be covered by her and though you can't control what she spends her money on make it clear you'll never be contributing towards school trips or anything under the "that's what the child maintenance if for." 

hopefully this will be enough to make her think this isn't the best way forward, if you can get any form of agreement from her under this then yeah go get it stamped as court order to protect yourself.