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Hi All I need some advice me and my distant partner have a voluntary payment agreement for my daughter who is nearly 18. I have since moved abroad for work and haven't seen her for some time and my ex is proving difficult although payments are still made. I have no wish to involve the CSA in my case but I need to know if my ex is still receiving Child Benefit for my daughter past the age of 18. If she is payments will continue if she isn't I will stop voluntary payments but assist my daughter financially and assist her getting a job. How can I find out if my Ex is still receiving Child Benefit the HMRC benefit department will not tell me. Is there any other way than hiring a private detective?
Awaiting
Hi PeteC
Thank you for your post. To find out if you are entitled to know if your ex-partner is still eligible to receive the Child Benefit for your daughter, you will need to seek legal advice. You can also find more information on the UK Government website Gov.uk on a parent's eligibility to receive the Child Benefit at https://www.gov.uk/child-benefit.
With regards to child maintenance, your post suggests that you and your ex-partner agreed child maintenance privately via what we call a family-based arrangement. Even though this type of agreement is not legally-binding, it gives you and your ex-partner the freedom to decide the terms of your agreement between yourselves, such as when you will stop paying child maintenance.
If you wanted to follow the UK statutory rules for your family-based arrangement, regular child maintenance payments must be made until a child is 16 years old, or 20 if they are in full-time, non-advanced education (A-Level or equivalent), or for as long as Child Benefit is being paid. You can find more information on when child maintenance stops based on the UK statutory rules on Gov.uk at https://www.gov.uk/when-child-maintenance-payments-stop.
To discuss how child maintenance can be paid with you living abroad and your ex-partner and your daughter living in the UK, you can get in touch with Child Maintenance Options. Their contact details can be found on their website at http://www.cmoptions.org.
We also 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.
Kind regards
William
It's difficult to find out whether someone is still in receipt of child benefit, as you have found out. I would say that if you think it has stopped, then tell your ex that you are no longer going to pay maintenance, and if she disagrees, then she can go to the CMS and open a case - they won't do this as far as I know if she isn't getting CB
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