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Hi All,
I had so far family based agreement for Child Maintenance with my ex.
Payments have been calculated in Gov calculator based on the assumption that my 2 girls will spend with me more than 52 nights per calendar year.
Due to the COVID situation from beginning of April, lock-down and fact I am key worker we decided with my ex that will be better me to not take girls to my house to mitigate risk of infection.
I have regular see them during 2 months period (every second day) with social distance measurement in place.
From June we came back to scheduled nights as initially planned.
I started to have suspicions in July when my ex refused me to take them on Holiday to mine. In the end of August I received letter form CMS that she opened case and declared that I am taking girls for less than 52 nights. When I asked her if I can recover nights form Lock-down then she do not reply.
If I will summarise there is only 45 nights which girls spent and will spend with me according to the actual plan (because of COVID).
I am not sure if I can do anything this year to achieve 52 nights because any extras are blocked by ex.
How can I prove or mitigate risk that my ex not follow the plan for next year please ?
There is no court order in place
Hello. I had similar and did not have a good outcome. Because the CMS website at the time(April to July) was saying no adjustments would be made for Covid, I felt safe when my ex went to them to say I was now under 52 nights. I assumed me stating this to CMS would make them re-consider.
But they didn't, stating that as I have no court order I could not prove my 52 nights and that it therefore was not related to COvid.
Very frustrating as I was having over 52 nights until Covid, only that changed it - and of course a very vindictive ex wife!.
So I fear you will get the same answer, but suggest you still try and use the 'no changes during Covid' statement they had up. I no longer have that statement but I believe Bill posted the link some time back.
Good luck.
hi,
as Hrabbit mentioned, CMS can be difficult about overnights and shared care if there is no court order. that is something you may want to consider getting. My court order and CMS case were done a year before covid hit, so CMS would never have adjusted my overnights as covid period of not seeing kids was temporary.
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