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Hi there,
I have a court order to see my daughter 2 nights every fortnight, Christmas and summer holidays if I take her away. I fall into the 53-103 nights a year bracket with my court order. However my ex has failed to follow the court order and hardly lets me see my daughter and refused to let me take her on holiday last year. I am dealing with this separately. My annual review for the CMS is coming up and I'm worried she will try to say I never see my daughter to get rid of the 1/7th deduction. I am always ready and available to see my daughter and buy things in for her when she is meant to stay, only to be let down last minute. Please note court order asks for some flexibility due to my daughter being 13 but ex takes this as an opportunity to get daughter to say she isn't coming or only coming down for a few hours/1 night. How will this stand with the CMS? seems unfair I should have to pay more before ex doesn't follow court order.
hi,
the nights mentioned in court order should stick. but as you mentioned, your ex is the issue and she could bend CMS in her favour. its tricky due to your childs age. if you go back to court to enforce order, the child may say she does not want to spend x number of nights with you. you can try agree holidays weeks in advance etc. try and reason with her.
Hi from being in a similar situation recently, except I'm the mum and the father of my boys is arguing with cms, I told the cms the truth of our private arrangement with exact nights per month he has our boys, and they made their calculations.
The father was unhappy to pay anything full stop so he has become difficult, tried to tell cms I am commiting fraud.
They assured me they would not listen to a word he says as I am resident parent. (sad I know for those fathers, where the mother really is lying :()
But they did say to him if you can produce a court order that says different we will adjust accordingly.
So guess what, after 4 years of a successful private arrangement that the boys love, he's taking me to court in an attempt to win more time to pay me less and show cms so he gets a reduction.
So I don't think you have any concerns if you show cms the court order, I believe you can upload this. They will work out your payments based on the nights in the court order. (holiday abit grey, but you make yourself available to do the these, and if calculated within nights on order, nothing to worry about)
Your ex can try and tell them different and maybe your daughter does come less now, that's her choice, but CMS will certainly follow the order as it stands for now.
If all you are claiming is the 1/7th then in the event of a dispute between parents, I am told (and was my experience) that CMS default to the 1/7 as a matter of course.
So if you claimed you had 3 nights a week and your ex said none, they would default to 1 night. So in your case I expect you would retain your 1/7 status for assessment.
This is what happened with me.
Absolutely go back to court. They will look favourably at you and nt well at her.
They won’t. She just lies and blames it all on my daughter and it works. I’m in Scotland where court system is even more in favour of mums. I’ve got text messages between daughter and her mother which show manipulation and solicitors say she might twist these against me! Ex also gets legal aid fraudulently as she claims as single person but lives with a partner. She always lands on her feet.
They won’t. She just lies and blames it all on my daughter and it works. I’m in Scotland where court system is even more in favour of mums. I’ve got text messages between daughter and her mother which show manipulation and solicitors say she might twist these against me! Ex also gets legal aid fraudulently as she claims as single person but lives with a partner. She always lands on her feet.
if shes doing legal aid fraud, report her https://www.gov.uk/guidance/legal-aid-agency-special-investigations
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