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My partner walked out on me without warning or reason, taking our children with her about six months ago. She manipulated the situation with false allegations to council and support groups in order to obtain accommodation and to this day, won't tell me where they live now. In the first two months, she restricted access considerably but it has improved a tad over the last couple of months.
Over the past several weeks, she has become a lot more friendly and she has been coming around with my children quite a lot. They have been staying with me every Friday night and sometimes on the Saturday as well. Her solicitor's letter stated that she would only let me see our baby at a contact centre for an hour every Saturday morning because she "would feel uneasy in my company" yet, as I have said, she has been around frequently and felt quite at home to sit with me and breast feed our son and chat. She has been quite happy to leave our baby with me on each occasion for a couple of hours so that she can go to the gym (read into that what you will). Her solicitor's letter also stated that I would only have our older children for an overnight stay once per fortnight. This has not been the case ..... until ....it has come to the first child maintenance payment. I had been voluntarily giving her around £500-600 per month in addition to paying for outings, cinema etc on top. The CMS determination is for £778 per month, based on less than 52 overnight stays per annum, leaving me with around £60 per month to pay for time with my children, put some saving away, save for holidays etc.
This morning I ask her to tell the CMS how often the children are staying with me in order to reduce the determination such that it reflects the truth and I am left with an addition £150 to use toward my children when with me. I call the CMS to also tell them. They state that unless she agrees to the current contact arrangements, they will not reconsider. Guess what! I get a call back to tell me that she has only agreed to once per fortnight contact and thus, the determination stands. So not only is she taking all my money but she is now perfectly happy to callously reduce contact with our children in order to maximise child maintenance payments!
This is blatant manipulation of the CMS whereby she is using our children as currency and seems there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.
Hi There and welcome to the forum,
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This is a tactic used a lot by ex's who want to gain as much income as possible, your best way forward would be to start the process of court, this would start with mediation, if your ex won't attend or you can't work things out, then the mediator will sign the court application for you to submit.
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In court you can work towards an agreement that would suit you better and when this is written into and order then CMS will accept this as proof of the 52 nights or more and reduce you payments, even if you can agree in mediation, then hopefully the agreement that the mediator would send you written up, would also be enough to show CMS what has been agreed.
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Be aware though that anything agreed in mediation isn't legally binding and so your ex, could well change her mind at any point, especially when CMS contact her, and there is no come back.
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GTTS
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