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Hi my best friend is going through a difficult time so I am helping comb the internet for advice - I think it will boil down to him needing to pay for legal advice.
We know that child maintenance and contact are not legally linked. He currently has his children one day a week and has done for the last 8yr. Ex wife has been difficult every time, preventing contact some times, arranging things for the children they can't miss like parties etc, and recently has been alienating the children against him so they don't want to go (early teens).
They have had an informal agreement as to his maintenance payments to her, and he also contributes one off payments for things like school/medical needs on top.
She is now saying one child doesn't want to visit at all and the other only once or twice a month. She has told him she is going to go through CMS to get money from him. He will now need to pay the highest amount of maintenance - because she has made it so they stay with him less.
We know he will need to go through court to retain the level of access to his children, which he has put off for their sake hoping his ex will not force him to go to court but she won't back down.
However in the meantime she is going to CMS and falsely claiming they live with her 100% of the time, which if at all true is down to her and not a joint decision.
Is he going to be made to pay the full amount of maintenance even though he WANTS his children? Will he then be reimbursed if/when court determines a custody arrangement which would mean he should pay less?
Hi,
If there is no court order in place then CMS will likely take resident parents word for it, so he will have to pay full amount. If he is able to restore contact and get a court order, then CMS will only reduce payments from the date they receive court order and date when overnights shared care begins.
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