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Hi,
I'm actually a step mum to a father who sees his daughter every 2 weeks.
Previously they had a verbal arrangement on the amount of maintenance he pays and since then she has turned really nasty and has gone to CSA claiming this never happened so has now been lumped with a higher price due to backdating.
This leaves him with £30 a week to live on once all bills have been taken out. We don't go out, we literally go to work and come home and watch TV or read because we can't even afford an Asda make your own pizza!
We do all the driving (60 minutes round trip) every other weekend, twice a weekend and pay for all the petrol and since they separated my partner has provided clothes for their daughter and a bedroom (all the normal things).
However, since this CSA payments have gone up, things like new clothes we simply can't afford.
I am having to make this money gap up and buy more food etc for us on my wage because my partner is left with hardly anything after paying CSA. However the mother doesn't believe us when we have asked for clothes to be packed. She says she has got legal advice and we should be providing clothes for when his daughter stays with us, but we literally can't afford clothes - we have a couple of tshirts that fit and that's it and since it's been christmas we have been saving for 4 months just to buy her cheap toys so she has something to open at christmas.
We live in a city that is not cheap on rent and to get somewhere cheaper would mean a house share which would mean no bedroom, privacy or anything for his daughter - something I am sure the mother would also not want, but also something that if they ever went to court, they would look down on.
I may add they have been through mediation 4 times now and never has this worked the mother has always gone back on what was agreed within a few months, and now we can't afford even 1 mediation session due to CSA.
We are really at a loss.
Is it true legally he has to pay CSA and not expect his money to be towards clothes which then can be packed for a weekend by the mother?
It's driving us both down and we are both severely depressed due to our money situation, something that could be lifted if the mother (who has since bought a house and rennovated from top to bottom) would just ease off and come to an agreement that would be beneficial to us all. She is not strapped for cash at all, but to add, my partner would also never stop contributing to his daughter despite he not being as well off as the mother.
We just don't know what we can do....
Any advice?
I feel for you both, but unfortunately there’s nothing to say that she has to provide clothes for when the child stays with you.
If she has reneged on agreements previously made at mediation, that wouldn’t be helpful either. I wish I could be more positive and have options to suggest, but the sad truth is that once the CMS are involved, without cooperation from the resident parent, there’s is little that can be done.
All the best
I agree with the above, but I assume he's not sending her back with anything more than she arrives in? He certainly doesn't have any obligation to provide clothes for her to use when she is with her mother.
Depending on your costs for petrol, you may be able to get the CMS reduced slightly - take a look at this:
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