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*rant*
So, I've worked out my holiday allowance for the year and intent to spend as much time as I can with my lad. Whilst booking hols etc, I received my Annual Review from CMS.
I've looked and it appears that over the course of the year, I have him more than my current classification group.
I called CMS, to confirm the nights. His mother agreed to most of them. But then CMS tell me that they cannot use one-off nights or historical dates within this year to calculate a change of category!
Seriously ... they are defeating their own purpose. I want to spend as much time with him as I can. But if they aren't going to change my category, then what incentive do I have?
It also seems that his mother is also wary of me asking to take him on holiday as she realises how close to the boundary I am, and is countering every request I make ... which she never does before, asking for more time with him!! Yup, she really is that shallow!
Rant !!
So my question is, does anyone have any experience of advising CMS of "extra days"?
to be honest, if you are so close to a boundary, then your ex is going to make sure you are below it so it doesn't affect the maintenance and the CMS are going to leave things as they are because it's a case of your word against hers, so I'd forget the idea of changing this and just concentrate on having as much time with your boy as possible and forget the financial considerations of doing so.
Number of nights of shared care each year
Reduction to child maintenance (for each child with shared care)
52 to 103 nights. = 1/7th
104 to 155 nights. = 2/7th
156 to 174 nights = 3/7th
More than 175 nights = 1⁄2 (50%) plus an extra £7 a week reduction for each child in this band
We don’t need to know about every change to the number of nights of agreed shared care.
We only need to know if the change affects the ‘shared care band’ used to work out the reduction.
This means that if the number of nights of shared care a year changes from 140 to 150 we would not need to know. But if the number of nights of shared care a year changes from 150 to 160, this change would need to be reported to us by either parent.
I took this from the CMS guidelines.
However proving that you have your child more is really difficult if the receiving parent lies about it! Sometimes if It's disputed the CMS will take it back to the default calculation, which is only one night a week.
It's annoying but the time spent with your son is precious.
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