[Solved] Tricky one - please advise

1.
If the child's mother opens a case with the CMA (new CSA), you will automatically be charged for maintenance UNLESS you request a DNA test.
The DNA test WILL have to be paid for by yourself. The mother can refuse to submit the child for sampling, but she will lose out because the claim case will be closed.

If the result is negative, then you will get a refund. If it is positive, then you do not get the money back.
2.
You payment schedule will be calculated from the date that the case is opened with the CMA (usually the date the child's mother calls the CMA). You will not have to backpay before this date.
3.
If you pay for your other 3 children via the CSA(i.e. you already have a case with the CSA which includes these children) then all 4 children are taking into account when calculating the total you pay for all children.
Each child would then get an equal split of this total.

See page 14 of this document (How we work out child maintenance).
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/260890/how-we-work-out-child-maintenance.pdf

Quote:
"The number of other children who the paying parent supports

If the paying parent or their partner gets Child Benefit for children who
may or may not live with them, we can take them into account. We call
these ‘other children the paying parent supports’.
If a paying parent has gross weekly income of £200 or more, up to and
including £3,000, we take these children into account in Step 2. "

4.
For calculating child maintenance the CMA uses your gross pay less pension contributions.
So... In your example, the amount used for calculation would be "... the £1700 after pension contributions"

However you will have to send in evidence of this that shows that it is consistent, and not just a one-off (last two months payslip would usually be accepted).

See page 12 of the above linked document.
Quote:
"Payments into a pension scheme made by a paying parent
The amount of gross weekly income at Step 1 is reduced if a paying
parent pays contributions into a private pension scheme.
For example, if a paying parent has gross income of £300 a week at Step
1 but pays private pension contributions of £20 a week, the amount of
gross income we now take into account is £280 a week.
Remember that contributions to an occupational or employer pension
scheme by deductions from pay are usually made by an employer. If
this is the case, we will have already taken these into account in Step 1
and the paying parent does not need to tell us about them.
But a paying parent can tell us if they pay their contributions in another
way – for example, direct to a private pension provider.
If a paying parent makes payments into a private pension scheme, we
will usually reduce the income figure we use by the full amount they
pay, including the value of any tax relief."

Thanks for your reply. Will i have to pay anymore a month if the 4th child is mine? Or will the money im paying for the 3, just be divided 4 ways?

Thanks for your reply. Will i have to pay anymore a month if the 4th child is mine? Or will the money im paying for the 3, just be divided 4 ways?

Read the document that I referenced above. It's there in page 18 (How we work out child maintenance).

Everything that's currently known about how the new CMA calculates payments is in there.
You have to do some of the research in order to help yourself you know....

Hi rm09

Thank you for your post. I am William the Child Maintenance Options consultant. I will provide some information that may help answer your query.

Firstly, you may wish to know that the Child Support Agency (CSA) are no longer accepting new applications. These are now being managed by the Child Maintenance Service. Therefore, if the 11 year old child’s mother makes an application for statutory child maintenance, it will be to the Child Maintenance Service.

If the person who is asked to pay maintenance denies that they are the parent, The Child Maintenance Service will class this as a disputed parentage case. If a claim is made to the Child Maintenance Service, they will ask the person named if they accept that they are the child's parent. If they deny it, the Child Maintenance Service will look into the reasons why and ask them to provide evidence to support their denial. They will not ask them to pay child maintenance until the dispute has been resolved. You can find more information on the Child Maintenance Service’s disputed parentage process at https://www.gov.uk/child-maintenance/disagreements-about-parentage. You can also find further details on DNA testing at https://www.gov.uk/dna-testing-parentage-disagreements.

Some people may have their cases moved from the Child Support Agency to the Child Maintenance Service. This will only happen if:

• A new application has been made by a receiving parent which will be managed by the Child Maintenance Service
• This application names a paying parent who has an existing CSA case.

If an application is made to the Child Maintenance Service for the 11 year old child and you are shown to be the father, your CSA case for your three children will be moved to the Child Maintenance Service. Your child maintenance will then be recalculated for four children. The total amount of child maintenance calculated will then be shared between your children’s other parents.

The Child Maintenance Service works 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. In most cases this gross income figure comes from information given to HM Revenue & Customs by the paying parent, their employer or a third-party such as an accountant. You can find more information on how the Child Maintenance Service work 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.

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