[Solved] cms rules - father has savings but no job

Under the rules if he has assets of over £65,000 then he is liable for maintenance...At least thats my understanding. There is a sticky at the top of the child maintenance section called "How does the CSA calculate payments" and you might find some more info about this in there.

There are two links, the first is for the 2003 scheme, that's claims opened between December 2003 and December 2012 and the second is the current scheme.

Yep, that's my understanding as well. Do you have proof of his lottery win? If so, that might make it easier, but I would hope that the CMS can track this down anyway.

Hi tombopop

Thank you for your post. I am William the Child Maintenance Options consultant. I will provide some information that may help answer your query.

If you or your wife wanted to use the rules that are employed by the Child Maintenance Service, they work out child maintenance using the paying parent’s gross income, which is income before Income Tax and National Insurance are taken off, but after occupational or personal pension scheme contributions are taken away. In most cases this gross income figure comes from information given to HM Revenue & Customs by the paying parent, their employer or a third-party such as an accountant.

After child maintenance has been calculated, the receiving parent can ask the Child Maintenance Service to look into the paying parent’s unearned income, such as rental income from property or land, or dividends and interest from savings and investments. This type of income must be at least £2,500 a year. You can find more information on how the Child Maintenance Service on Gov.uk at https://www.gov.uk/how-child-maintenance-is-worked-out/how-the-child-maintenance-service-works-out-child-maintenance.

As the other members have mentioned, the Child Support Agency (CSA) work out child maintenance differently to the Child Maintenance Service. You can find out how they do this using the 2003 rules on the same website at https://www.gov.uk/how-child-maintenance-is-worked-out/how-the-child-support-agency-works-out-child-maintenance.

If you would like me to provide more information on the ways that parents can set up a child maintenance arrangement, it would be useful to know a little more about your wife and the other parent’s circumstances. I’d like to know:

• Does your wife have an open case in place with either the Child Maintenance Service or the CSA. If not, as an arrangement ever been set up via the courts in the form of a Consent Order or Minute of Agreement (for parents that live in Scotland)
• Does your wife only have one child with the other parent
• How old are the child or children and if applicable, are they in employment or full-time education (if yes, can you specify the level of education, for example GCSE)

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