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Hi all I need some advice and help please.
I have split up and don't see my children as my wife has told them real un-truths about me.
We went to court on 22nd August 2014 and agreed a consent order with a judge and both solicitors, this detailed split of equity on the house 90/10 in her favour, she had to sell the house and £400 per month per child maintenance.
I have paid for 24 months since I left my house (longer than this to be fair) £1200 per month mortgage and my ex and children live in the house. She pretty much refuses to sell.
She then, in November applied to the CMS for maintenance from me. I was horrified as they used my 2013 P60 for their calculation which meant I had to pay, immediately £16000 p.a for both children. Clearly I cannot afford £1200 per month mortgage, £1330 Ch M and my own rent and bills on my basic of £80k. They used the 2013 P60 which showed I earned £140k due to receiving £60k redundancy money (of which I gave her £15k cash at the time). They refused to accept that the P60 was 18 months out of date and I then had to prove my current earnings.
Over and above this last month I found that she CANNOT CLAIM CMS for 1 year after a Consent Order is in place. I was disgusted that CMS never told me this as it is fundamental and made the claim invalid, in my opinion.
I sent in the consent order and was pretty relaxed as it is a 4 page document signed by me, her and the judge and agreed and clearly states £400 per child.
Today the CMS tell me that despite all of the facts above their legal team have looked at the Consent Order and the part where the child support is detailed and said that is on page 1 of the order which is where 'her and I agree upon' and the actual order starts on page 2, and says at the top, 'An order'
I don't know how this can be true, its in the document and its a consent order, PLEASE CAN ANYONE ADVISE.....my solicitor is on holiday and a bill from them to my ex is about to land on me for £3k+ which I haven't got
HELP!!!!!
Does your solicitor have a partner who can advise - I think this needs to be correspondence between your solicitor and the CMS on what part is the order and how it stands with regards to maintenance.
You should also be able to ask the CMS to recalculate the maintenance due based on your current income as it is clearly changed by more than 25% since their calculation was done - in addition, I assume that a significant part of the redundancy was tax free, so shouldn't have been included in the calculation, and I presume you have less than £65k in assets, so the tax free element of the redundancy also shouldn't be included as far as I am aware.
Hello Redandyt
The information we have is that it is possible to change the terms of your Consent Order but to do this you will need to get legal advice. This usually results in going back to court to set out the application on a standard form. The court will then consider any changes.
Any Consent Orders that were endorsed after March 2003 are not legally subject to change unless they have been in place for at least 12 months. After 12 months, either parent can apply to the Child Maintenance Service and the Consent Order will no longer be valid. However, if a Consent Order dates back to before April 2003, then law does not allow parents to change over to the Child Maintenance Service. Only the courts can arrange child maintenance in such circumstances. You may wish to seek legal advice as to where you stand regarding this.
With an application being made to the Child Maintenance Service you may wish to contact them directly to discuss any concerns you have regarding your case. You will find their details on any letters they have sent you or on Gov.uk at https://www.gov.uk/child-maintenance.
For more information on the different ways to set up child maintenance, you can visit the Child Maintenance Options website at http://www.cmoptions.org.
The DWP 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
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