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Hi,
I have recently divorced from my wife of 5 years and we have one 3-year old boy.
I currently earn £41,000 and she earns between £80-90,000 (not sure). Under CSA rules my payment would be £380/month on my income, but we have made a family agreement whereby I am currently paying £700/month (costs me £630 when childcare vouchers are used) whilst he is at nursery, and once he leaves nursery it drops to £550.His nursery costs £1,400 a month. She is living in a 2 bed house costing £1700 a month and plans to stay there as we hope to get him into a nearby Catholic school and proximity helps.
He currently stays with me 2 nights per week (which I love, but she has to be away for work those nights, so this also benefits her) plus Fri & Sat every second weekend, and we are amicable so we often swap days as suits.
She claims she is bearing the higher cost of raising him given her high rent etc and is seeking 60-65% of our assets to reflect this, despite her higher earning capacity. We're close to signing a financial settlement but she now wants to make my payments part of this agreement, ie I'll be locked into paying this amount no matter what. I can't accept that.
I have found these payments unsustainable and wish to modify them (still happy to pay more than CSA but not so much). I love having my son with me so much but I am covering the cost of looking after him these nights, so effectively I have him 3 days a week to her 4. Now he is 3 years old, the govt will pay 15 hours a week (is this correct?) towards his nursery costs,which she currently pays using our combined money. Surely this now means I am actually paying MORE for him than she is, given we have him nearly half and half? Also I pay her half of any clothing she buys him (I buy him some clothes too but she won't pay for this, saying she is the primary carer and anything i buy is optional. Yes, it pisses me off! One rule for me, one for her).
I love the amount of time I have with him and worry she may try and restrict this if I pay less, but in reality i can't afford to pay so much. This arrangement has been in place since the start of Feb this year.
I like that we are amicable but I can't be broke for the rest of my life - and if the price of her co-operation is being penniless its not worth it. I have a new girlfriend who helps with money sometimes but this is not fair on her and we will never have any savings, and if my ex remarries she will be rolling in it while we both continue to struggle, if I agree to keep paying this much. It is a silly situation. I don't believe my ex is spiteful, but has an unrealistic idea of what i should pay and needs to get real. I am happy to pay more than the CSA, esp while he's at this nursery, but not THIS much!
I'd like some feedback on what people think of this arrangement, and also advice on my chances of getting my time with him legally enforceable if she tried to reduce this, given we have established a pattern our son is now used to. To suddenly stop seeing me will negatively affect him, and would only be out of spite. She may not do this but I would rather know what I may be facing.
As an extra note, she may need to relocate from London to Manchester for work in a few months.She doesn't want to leave London, but she may need to, to keep her new job. I can't stop her but obviously this completely changes our arrangement so my payments should then be far smaller - if I see him once a fortnight I might as well just pay the CSA amount after all. Advice welcome!
Hi there,
It is great you have managed to stay amicable and have agreed to pay over the odds for csa.
You will need to negotiate with your ex to be able to get this amount down, I wouldn't sign into any agreement until you have reached an amount that you are happy with.
Have you thought about mediation?
It may be worth you both attending to try and talk things through and reach an agreement as to what you pay and what you pay for.
claiming 60% isn't too bad from experience as you will take 40% many have ended up with much less including myself.
GTTS
Hi Harvs.
Thank you for your post. My name is William I am the Child Maintenance Options consultant.
I understand that your ex-wife wants to make your family-based arrangement part of your financial settlement.
A family-based arrangement is simply an agreement between your and your ex-wife about who will provide what for your son. It can include money and other kinds of support, for example helping with nursery fees. A family-based arrangement is not legally binding but it is flexible and can be changed as your son's needs change. This type of arrangement is also made without needing to disclose personal information to a third party.
To help you continue with your family-based arrangement, we have got a number of tools and guides available on our website, including a child maintenance calculator that will give you an idea how much you may be expected to pay with the CSA, you will also find a family-based arrangement form on our website, where you can record the details of your agreement. You will find these at: http://www.cmoptions.org.
If you are unsure about being locked into your arrangement, you may, as got-the-tshirt has suggested, consider mediation to ensure you can agree a child maintenance arrangement that you and your ex-wife are both happy with.
You also mention that you also have concerns that your ex-wife will restrict your contact with your son if you reduce the amount you pay. Contact and Maintenance are not linked in law. Therefore, difficulties over one should not disrupt arrangements for the other. Contact should never be used as a way of bargaining with each other for maintenance payments.
If you would like to find a mediator in your area, please visit http://find-legal-advice.justice.gov.uk/.
You can also find further information about free early education for 3 year olds on the Gov.uk website at: https://www.gov.uk/free-early-education.
If you do want to follow the guidelines put in place by the Child Support Agency (CSA), they would calculate at around 15 percent of your net income and the amount paid would be reduced to take in to account the number of nights your son stays with you. Once an amount has been calculated the CSA would expect you to pay that amount, any extra you provided would be purely voluntary on your part.
If you are unable to continue with your family-based arrangement, either you or your ex-wife can make an application to the CSA. The CSA have two schemes available, you can set up a Direct Pay arrangement. This is where the CSA calculates child maintenance but you and your ex-wife agree how payments will be made. Once they have calculated the maintenance amount, the CSA will not contact either of you again unless someone's circumstances change or they are told that you have missed or fallen behind with your payments.
Under the CSA's Collect and Pay service they calculate, collect and enforce payments on a parent's behalf, as some people prefer the security and help of third party involvement. If an application is made to the CSA, your responsibility to pay will start from around the time that the CSA contact you, or you contact them. If you have got any questions about the CSA, or if you would like to set up maintenance using their service, you can contact them directly.
Just to make you aware that if a case is opened with the CSA and your ex-wife were to move away, the CSA may take into account any travel costs you have to pay to have contact with your son.
You can find further information about how the CSA works out child maintenance on the following link: http://www.gov.uk/child-maintenance.
If your family-based arrangement is to be included in your financial settlement, it may be that it would be arranged via Consent Order.
Once a Consent Order has been agreed and authorised, you would be legally liable to pay the amount the court has endorsed. However, the court does not monitor or collect payments. Any Consent Orders 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 you or your ex-wife can apply to the CSA and the Consent Order will no longer be valid.
It is also possible to change the terms of a Consent Order and to do this you would need to get legal advice. For further information about Consent Orders, you may wish to speak to your solicitor.
To find out more about how Child Maintenance Options can help you visit cmoptions.org or call us free on 0800 988 0988 between 8am and 8pm Monday to Friday or 9am and 4pm on Saturday.
We also have a sorting out separation web-app that you may find useful, it offers help and support to separating families. The link is: http://www.dad.info/divorce-and-separation/sorting-out-separation
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