[Solved] Payment of Child Maintenance

Are you paying via CMS or is it the court order? If it's CMS, then you need to keep paying until September after he finishes non-advanced full time education (ie not university). If it is the court order, then it isn't clear whether it's unoversity or not, so you might be best trying open a case with CMS (very quickly) as this will override the court order.

Hi Peter

Q1. Yes, until first week of September, but that's the rule according to the CMS, not where there's a court order.
Q2. Some pre degree courses will still be eligible for CM. The court order will stand, unless you open a case with the CMS, the CMS application will override the court order, as actd has advised.

Hope that helps

Thank you both for the information. I will find out the course . Finally what happens if he works more than 30 hours per week between finishing school and starting university?
Peter

If this is under CSA or CMS, then it doesn't matter as you still pay until September as he is presumably still classed as being in full time education (presumably his course finishes in June/July). If it's under the court order, then you might possibly be able to stop at the end of June/July, but then you'll have to start paying again when he starts university, so you are still best opening a case with CMS if that is the case.

Hello Reece1202

When a child leaves school in the summer, maintenance payments would usually continue until the first week in September. This is because maintenance payment schedules run in line with Child benefit eligibility.

While your child continues to be eligible for Child benefit, maintenance should still be paid also. So, if he starts work which is over 24 hours per week and is no longer eligible for Child benefit, the maintenance would also end. You can check the eligibility rules here, https://www.gov.uk/child-benefit/eligibility.

Once your child is at university, he will be classed as being in advanced education. This is a standard above A-level or equivalent. Therefore, no maintenance payments would be required.

These rules are current child maintenance legislation, so would be followed if you had a case with the Child Maintenance Service, the Government’s statutory maintenance service.

If your court order states anything different from this, you may wish to seek legal advice to clarify.

If your child was in full-time, non-advanced education when your court order ran out at age 19, the other parent would still be able to apply for a Child Maintenance Service arrangement until he was 20. This wouldn’t affect you if your son is at university of course.

The court order does not override other arrangements. In fact, once a court order has been in place for 12 months, it can be altered or made void by an application to the Child Maintenance Service which does override other arrangements.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have a website, ‘Sorting out separation’. It aims to make it much easier for separating and separated parents (and childless couples) to find the support they need, when and where they need it, and encourages them to collaborate on a range of issues. The link is https://www.sortingoutseparation.org.uk/

Regards

William