[Solved] Child support when unemployed

Hi there

You need to contact the Child Maintenance Service for advice and to find out what your new liability will be.

The same happened to me a few years back. I phoned the CMS the day I left my job to notify them (did not tell them why, they don't need to know). they wanted evidence, so sent in my P45 that my employer sent to me and this was accepted. I did not sign on to benefits straight away as I done some travelling.

They were very critical of me on the phone and kept asing how I am going to support myself. I said that is none of their concern. I think they were fishing around to find out if I had savings

At this point my assessment was £0 to pay, the letters went out after my evidence was accepted, but was backdated to the day I left and reported it to them.

I then signed on to benefits about a month later. At this point my liability went up to £7 per week, this was automatically generated as the CMS must have a link in with work and pensions to report that I was on benefits.

Seemed that the system worked well in my situation, but it is imperative that you report it to them the day you are made unemployed.

What is the property you own? Why do you think they will come after that? They can't touch your residential place.

They won't touch your property, assuming it's your main residence.

I know you said your family are going to help you out, but you may as well claim benefits - you've been paying national insurance while you were working, so why not claim what you are entitled to?

hi,

if you end up out of work for a long period, it is better to cover yourself and claim benefits. then CMS will make you pay £7 a week maintenance. but be careful. because when you return to work and e.g say you been out of work for 6 months, then CMS will expect you to make back-dated payments for 6 months. i am not expert on this but this is how they seem to operate. try to avoid these situations where you only end up making back-dated payments.

Bill,

I agree that it is always best for yourself to claim benefits, that way your NI contributions will be kept up to date.

Not sure what you mean by backpayments? That was certainly not the case for me, when I was unemployed and not on benefits, I was not made to back pay.

I think the key is to keep the CMS appraised as soon as your situation changes, and provide the relevant evidence to support this. Then you should avoid nasty surprises.

hi Yoda,

i will look into this further, about unemployment and back-dated pay.

stuff from their leaflet:
Changes to your job or employment
If you are employed – and we have used gross income information given to us by you, your employer or your accountant to work out child maintenance – you must tell us within 7 days of the change if you change your employer or your working hours and this leads to at least a 25% change in your gross income, up or down.
Important: If you do not tell us about this type of change within 7 days, you may be prosecuted and fined up to £1,000. Your child maintenance payments may also be backdated to the date to when the change happened.

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in my case CMS pushed me into 2 months arrears just for signing up to them lol. it took them over 2 months to tell me what im supposed to be paying. so for that i'm making back-dated payments from the time i registered with them, on top of regular payments.