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Hi,
Several Years ago, whilst getting divorced, my ex-wife and I agreed I would pay 15% of my Net Salary for Child Support, as we went to court of finalise the divorce, there is a consent agreement in place confirming this (CSA is not involved). However, I just realised the rules to calculate Child Maintenance have changed and now parents need to pay 12% on the Gross Income!
I am very involved in my sons life, I spend a lot of time with him, I buy clothes, take him to day trips, parks, meals, holidays, etc. I know anything I pay extra is up to me and I happily do it. I am just wondering where I stand with these "new" rules, before I get the call from the Ex and get my ear out.
- - Can I keep paying what we agreed back in the day(15% based on my Net Salary) until my agreement with the mother changes?
- - Do I have to increase my payments to 12% ? if so, do I have a grace period to do so?
- - As the rules came into force last year, Am I liable to pay for the difference between the amount I have to pay with the old rules, and the new rules?
Thank you very much for your time, and advise.
.
Hi and welcome.
The agreement you have from court (basically a consent order) is valid until something changes it, which is either one of you going back to court to get it varied, or one of you applying to the CMS to take the case. The maintenance will only change at the point the order is varied, or the CMS open a case. So in answer to your question, what you are paying currently is correct and you should continue paying this. There is no liability for anything backdated. If you think your ex is going to go to the CMS, then it might be worth you opening the case yourself, so you know the start date - the problems have arisen in the past where the CSA have taken a while to contact the father, and have disregarded payments being made during that period, saying it wasn't for maintenance (make sure that, assuming you pay by standing order, that they are clearly marked as child maintenance to remove that element of doubt).
The new rules mean you start paying more when you earn over about £25k pa, but realistically, the difference is more noticeable when you are into the higher tax bracket.
Hi SuperDad
Thank you for your post. I am William the Child Maintenance Options consultant. I will provide some information that may help answer your query.
Once a Consent Order has been agreed and authorised, the paying parent is legally liable to pay the amount the court has endorsed. It is possible to change the terms of a 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.
If you wanted to use the statutory rules that are employed by the Child Maintenance Service, they work out child maintenance using the amount of gross income given to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) by a paying parent, their employer or their accountant to work out the average amount of earnings, or, where the paying parent is self-employed, their taxable profits. For every case, the gross income figure will be reviewed each year in order to take account of newer income information given to HMRC. In addition, the proportion of the paying parent’s income that is used to work out child maintenance is dependent on the child maintenance rate the paying parent is place in. You can find more information on how the Child Maintenance Service works out child maintenance on Gov.uk at https://www.gov.uk/how-child-maintenance-is-worked-out/how-the-child-maintenance-service-works-out-child-maintenance.
For more information on the ways to set up child maintenance, please visit our website at http://www.cmoptions.org. Alternatively, you can call us free on 0800 988 0988 between 8am and 8pm Monday to Friday or 9am and 4pm on a Saturday. We 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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