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I have a family agreement. Almost two years ago I started working away from home during the week. My son has always come to stay with my wife and I every weekend at some point and once during the week. He's continued this since I started working away. However, I am about to stop the one night during the week and will adjust the payment accordingly. In the near future my wife and I plan to move to where I work and my son will still come at weekends. I will then be having to pay a lot of money in petrol to collect him and drop him off.
Am I entitled to anything for this? It's been 8 years or so since I had any issues with the maintenance (thank God) but I am expecting the move to stir things up.
Hi Chavez
I believe with it being a Family Agreement then you may have to discuss it with your ex as a Family Arrangement is not legally binding,i know that if you had a case with CMS then they would use a Variation Order to help with the travelling costs depending on the cost.
Approach the ex with care and explain that for you to continue on having the relationship you do so already with your son would there be a possibility to sit down and discuss about reducing the payment,good luck and hope it works out well
Hi Chavez
Thank you for your post. I am William the Child Maintenance Options consultant. I will provide you some information that may help answer your query.
You mentioned that you have agreed child maintenance privately via a family-based arrangement. With this type of agreement, there are no strict rules to stick to. Therefore, both you and your son’s other parent have the freedom to decide the terms of your own arrangement, such as if your travel costs to see your son will be taken into account.
A family-based arrangement can include money and other kinds of support, such as you directly paying for things that your son may need. Although family-based arrangements are not legally-binding, many parents prefer them because of how flexible they and how easy the arrangement can be reviewed. You can find more information on family-based arrangements on our website at http://www.cmoptions.org/en/family/index.asp.
We have a range of tools and guides that can help keep your family-based arrangement amicable ( http://www.cmoptions.org/en/toolbox/index.asp). These include our discussion guide which you can use to help you plan your conversations around child maintenance. We also have a family-based arrangement form that is not a legally-binding document, but if used to write down what both of you have agreed, it can help to formalise your arrangement.
To give you an indication of how much child maintenance that may be calculated if you were to use the Child Maintenance Service, we have an online calculator on our website at http://www.cmoptions.org/en/calculator/. Some parents use the figure provided when negotiating child maintenance for their family-based arrangement.
However, if you and your son’s other parent wished to use the statutory rules for your arrangement, the Child Maintenance Service work out child maintenance using the paying parent’s gross income which is income before Income Tax and National Insurance are taken off, but after occupational or personal pension scheme contributions are taken away. They also take into account other factors, such as the number of overnight stays per year the paying parent has the child that maintenance is to be paid for. There are circumstances where a paying parent’s travel expenses may be considered. You can find more information on how the Child Maintenance Service works out child maintenance on Gov.uk at https://www.gov.uk/how-child-maintenance-is-worked-out/how-the-child-maintenance-service-works-out-child-maintenance. You may also wish to contact the Child Maintenance Service directly for further guidance.
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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