[Solved] moving to 50% shared care and not paying maintenance

Hi all

Following my divorce I moved out in February to temporary accommodation while my new home is refurbished. My teenage children stayed with my ex on the understanding that they would move in with me on completion of the refurbishment for 50% of the time, with me paying half of all of their costs at that point, and carrying out half of parenting duties. My financial settlement order does say that there will be shared care, although it doesn't say 50%. My oldest child is 16 soon and is adamant that he wants to stay with me for half the time.

While living away from my children, I have been paying my ex the amount that the CMS calculator said I should based on my salary and the fact that the children were not staying any nights with me - so no discounts applied. I paid regularly with no payments missed, voluntarily. I have also been seeing them once during the week and every other weekend and paying for their meals and treats at those times.

Even though this was always a temporary arrangement and I was paying the required maintenance on time, my ex for some reason decided to open a case with the CMS and to go on to direct pay. This seems to have back fired somewhat as the CMS have calculated that I should be paying less than I had been.

When the children move in with me 50% of the time, I will want to stop paying maintenance all together given that we will both at that point be primary carers.

Once the children move in with me, she will no doubt make it difficult to close the case to get as much maintenance from me as she can. I want to minimise this time period while I prove to the CMS that the care of the children is indeed 50-50.

I have been toying with offering my ex the sum I was paying previously as a family based arrangement if she were to close the case now. However, I would only do this if there was some benefit in terms of the CMS. If she were to close the case now, I'm almost sure she would re-open it once I stop paying when the children move in with me. At that point, would it be any easier for me to resist having to pay maintenance on the basis that we are both primary carers vs demonstrating to the CMS at the time that we have moved to equal parenting on an active case? For now, the children are registered at their mum's address for everything including schools, doctors etc, although I have recently registered them with the dentist at my address. Also, she claims child benefit. I'm wondering whether all this will mean a protracted period while I demonstrate to the CMS that we are genuinely splitting financial and parenting commitments in half.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts.