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Hi I currently have a separation agreement which states that I will pay 15% of my net salary in maintenance whilst all of the folowing conditions are met.
1 Child is under 18
2 Child lives with her mother
3 Child is in full time education
My agreement goes on to state that both parents will contribute equally to our childs support whilst in tertiary education.
My child is 171/2 has now finished secondary school and is working part time whilst waiting to start university in september and lives with her mother.
It is my understanding that having left secondary school after completing highers and having accepted a place at university she has now finished "full time eduction" and has entered "tertiary" (advanced) eductation. Under the terms of our separation agreement I believe I should no longer be paying maintenance to my ex and should now be paying support directly to my child as should her mother.
Any thoughts?
Hi there
I would agree with your summation. Only two of the three criteria are met, so payment to the mother stops and direct payment follows when your daughter starts at Uni.
Had you been paying through the CSA payment wouldn't stop when your child leaves secondary school, but would continue on until the 1st September. Unless the child entered work of more than 24 hours a week in which case it would stop immediately.
Hi awatt32
Thank you for your post. I am William the Child Maintenance Options consultant. I will provide some information that may help answer your query.
If you wanted to follow the statutory rules, regular child maintenance payments must be made until a child is 16 years old, or 20 if they are in full-time, non-advanced education (A-level or equivalent), or for as long as Child Benefit is being paid. When a child leaves full-time education in the summer, Child Benefit generally continues until the first week of September. You can find more information on the statutory rules on when child maintenance stops on Gov.uk at https://www.gov.uk/when-child-maintenance-payments-stop.
However, you mentioned you have a separation agreement in place for child maintenance. If this was agreed and authorised by the court in the form of a Consent Order or Minute of Agreement (for parents that live in Scotland), you may wish to review the terms of your arrangement in more detail to clarify what you and your daughter’s mother have agreed. To help you with this, you may wish to seek legal advice.
If you and your daughter’s mother have agreed child maintenance privately via a family-based arrangement, there are no strict rules to stick to. Therefore, both you and your daughter’s mother have the freedom to decide the terms of your own arrangement, such has when child maintenance will cease. This is because a family-based arrangement is not legally-binding and there is no involvement from the courts or the statutory child maintenance services. You can find more information on family-based arrangements on our website at http://www.cmoptions.org/en/family/index.asp.
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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