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I have an old court order from Dec 1999 which says that I am to pay child maintenance for my son (NOTE: I was not married or co-habiting with the mother ever) until he is either 18 or finished full time education.
My son finishes his A levels this Summer and the mother has not yet insisted payments go beyond my son finishing his formal education in July, so I have concluded the court order stops when we reach this consensus?
The mother says my son is attempting to go to University later this year (depends on exam results) but has not inferred that she is expecting me continue paying - although she has said she is going to look at the wording of the old court order.
Advice I need is:
1. Should I continue paying the monthly amount as we have agreed and then stop.
2. Re-Contact the County Court where the order was made for clarification.
3. Have a legal letter saying what the law says on this matter/interpretation of 'full time education?'
I look forward to your reply.
Regards
Pete
Hi Pete
1. Usually if maintenance is paid through CSA payments would continue until the beginning of September if the child finishes full time non advanced education in June/July. If the child goes onto college/Btec or certain apprenticeships then under the CSA rules maintenance would continue up until the child reaches 20, or leaves or starts work. As university is classed as advanced education then your liability would stop if your son achieves this.
Court orders can differ from the CSA rules however, for instance if the order doesn't state non advanced full time education then maintenance liability may encompass attendance at university, which CSA does not.
2. I wouldn't contact the court you could be opening a can of worms! I suggest that you open a case yourself with the CSA asap. This would override the court order as it has been in place for longer than 12 months. This would prevent the mother from returning to court to vary the court order which might rule that you will be liable to continue payment until your son leaves university.
If you google the CSA calculator and answer the questions it will give you an estimate of the amount of maintenance they would expect you to pay. Under CSA rules you would then be liable for the amount until September 14 when/if he starts university.
This is just my opinion though Pete!
I agree with NJ.
Depends on what you are prepared to pay though - if you are willing to do so, you might be able to agree with your ex that instead of paying her, you pay directly to your son to support him through university. If you ex agrees with that, I'd put something in writing so that if she were to try to go back to court to say you hadn't paid, you could show that you were paying him by mutual consent.
Hi Pete
Thank you for your post. I am William the Child Maintenance Options consultant. I will provide some information that may help answer your questions on child maintenance.
Under 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, your email suggests that you may have a Consent Order in place for child maintenance. Therefore, you will need review the terms and conditions of your arrangement to clarify how full-time education is defined in your arrangement. To do this, you may wish to seek legal advice.
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.
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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