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Hi.
My son is 20 in september 2014. He has been in full time college education doing level 1 & 2 electrics and engineering. He has now finished this 2nd year and waiting for a date to go into the Navy as an Air Tech Engineer. He has passed all the entry processes and is lead to believe that he will join in Sept or Oct. my question is! When do I stop paying his mum maintenance? She is remarried with a good job, her husband has his own business with their own house. She also has the house we had which i signed over to her for my sons legacy. Which she rents out. Can I stop paying now or do i wait until he joins the Navy in Sept, Oct.
I have the feeling that child benefit, and therefore maintenance, can be extended for a short period beyond the end of education when they are awaiting entry into the forces, so I suspect it will be September, and in any event, if education finishes in July, payments normally continue until September, but I'd give the CSA a call to check that.
Hi topdad68
Thank you for your post. I am William the Child Maintenance Options consultant. I will provide some information that may help answer your query.
If you wanted to follow 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 www.gov.uk/when-child-maintenance-payments-stop. You can also find more information on a parent’s eligibility to receive Child Benefit at https://www.gov.uk/child-benefit.
However, if you and your son’s mum have agreed child maintenance privately via a family-based arrangement, there are no strict rules to stick to. Therefore, both you and your son’s mother have the freedom to decide the terms of your own arrangement, such as when your child maintenance will stop. This is because as family-based arrangement is not legally-binding and there is not involvement from the courts or the statutory child maintenance services.
Where child maintenance is being managed by either the Child Support Agency (CSA) or the Child Maintenance Service, you will need to contact the respective organisation who you have your case with to discuss your query on when your child maintenance will stop. This is because we do not have any access to your case information. You can find the relevant contact details on any letters that you may have received or by visiting Gov.uk at www.gov.uk/child-maintenance/contact.
If you and your son’s mother have set up child maintenance via the courts in the form of a Consent Order or Minute of Agreement (for parents that live in Scotland), you will need to review the terms and conditions of your arrangement to gain clarification on what both of you have agreed. To help you with this, you may wish to seek legal advice.
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.
Regards
William
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