[Solved] This is how I stopped Child Maintenance with 50/50 shared care

CSA dont care. my wife been off for mental health reasons work wise, i am struggling with price of living. my 16 year old son has moved in. i told CSA about change in day to day care. lol reply was keep paying till your review in october?? come on is this not mucking us dads or what?? specially when me wife always worked cant even get UC but ex get everything paid and never worked in her life!!

Hi everyone and apologies for the delay in my follow up posts. I didn’t get any notifications and thought there were no replies.

As promised here are my tips for the Child Benefit application. CMS will likely ignore any appeal if the Child Benefit is in payment to the other party, so as unpleasant as it seems, it is important to start with the Child Benefit which is a zero sum game i.e. it is paid entirely to one parent or the other, it cannot be split.

In my case my ex-wife and I had two children together which made things a little more straightforward. I also found HMRC to be easy to deal with and prompt in their decision making.

To start your claim go to their website and complete the online application form. This will generate a document to print off and send in. You will be asked if Child Benefit is already in payment to another party and then asked to provide their details. Print this off and add a cover letter to explain the circumstances. In my case, I considered myself to be at least an equal parent, if not the actual primary carer of the children and wished for the Child Benefit to reflect that.

I posted mine off in February and I received a reply from HMRC in April seeking further information and evidence. Enclosed was a form that allowed me to provide evidence and you are allowed to add any additional information you wish, so I wrote a short document in support of my claim.

The structure of the evidence pack follows the following sections, so I used these to structure my own document and included the evidence below:

Pattern of care – details and pending changes, differences during school holidays etc.

• I provided a description of the 50/50 care arrangement we had for our children. I pointed out that my ex-wife often requested that I keep the children beyond the terms of the 50/50 care and I considered myself the primary carer. No changes are planned to the pattern of care and no court orders were in place

Details of any written agreements with the other party

• We had no written agreement, but during our divorce proceedings we had been asked to provide a description to the court of the planned care arrangements. I asked my solicitor to write a short letter explaining the 50/50 terms agreed for care and she did this, saying that my ex-wife had signed papers and submitted them to the court reflecting this. I included that letter in my evidence.

Details of social services involvement, if any

• Self explanatory.

Address of the children on school records, medical records, where they stay when ill

• I explained that care of the children was always 50/50 so the children had been ill at both houses and looked after at both.
• I knew that the school had both addresses on record, so I had contacted the school and asked them to draft a letter outlining my involvement as a father. They supplied a letter confirming that I was often present at drop-off and collection; that my details were recorded for the children as a shared contact with their mother; that I attended school events and communicated with the teachers via the communications app regarding homework etc.; that I paid for wraparound care and had an account on School Money to pay for that; and that I was often in contact with the school office to talk to staff about various matters.
• I had also obtained a letter from the dentist to confirm they were registered at my address and that they attended their appointments with their father.
• I had also applied for a copy of the children’s medical notes from the GP and was able to provide evidence that I had attended the surgery with them at various times and that my name and number were on their records. Apparently medical records only allow for one address for a child and the children’s address remained with my ex-wife – this was a policy of the GP Practice in which they retain children at their mother’s address in the event of a split. I asked the practice manager to write a letter outlining that policy and included it in my pack.

Where the children’s personal possession are kept

• Equally split and the children bring their own items back and forward.

Details of other benefits, if any

• Self explanatory.

Question 14 refers specifically to whether or not you would agree to Child Benefit being paid to each parent, in the event of more than one child.

• Here I included a paragraph outlining how I thought it would be fair for both parties to receive benefit for one child to reflect the fact that the arrangement was 50 removed link

My submission was 13 pages, with about half of that being copies of the letters. The letters I used were from the Solicitor, School, GP Practice and Dentist. They weren’t hard to get and most people were understanding when I explained that I was just looking a letter to confirm simple facts – I wasn’t seeking opinion.

Obviously the circumstances are specific to me, but it will give you an idea of what can be submitted as evidence to support your case.

HMRC sent me a letter about one week later that simply stated they had reviewed the evidence submitted and decided to pay me for one child and maintain the payments for the other child with my ex-wife. In essence we both received Child Benefit for one child that meant that we were both equal when it came to the CMS applications. Helpfully, the letter from HMRC stated that “it is evident that E and R spend equal time with each parent. The fairest decision is to pay each customer for one child.”

That letter from HMRC became a central plank in my next appeal to CMS. I’ll get round to that post next…