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My daughter is 17 and finishes school this month (May 2018). She is thinking about college but has nothing fixed yet.
Do I stop paying maintenance now?
Do I have to keep paying for her if she has a gap between school and college?
When DO I finish paying for her?
I am in Scotland.
Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.
Hello xicdude
Under current legislation, child maintenance payments should be made until a child is 16 or until they are 20 if they are still in full-time, non-advanced education. Full-time is classed as a minimum of 12 hours per week and non-advanced is any standard up to and including A-level or equivalent. Maintenance payments also run in line with Child benefit, so if your daughter is still eligible for that, maintenance should also still be paid.
When a child finishes full-time education in the summer, as your daughter is doing, maintenance payments would usually continue until the first week of September as this is when the Child benefit payments would end. Of course, if your daughter then continues into college, the payments would continue. There should be no gap.
All this information is based on the statutory maintenance rules. If you have an agreement which you set up between yourselves, there are no rules to follow. The terms of that type of arrangement are up to the two of you to decide on, including when it comes to an end.
If you would like any further information and to receive a more personalised service, you can contact Child Maintenance Options directly, http://www.cmoptions.org.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have a website, ‘Sorting out separation’. It aims to make it much easier for separating and separated parents (and childless couples) to find the support they need, when and where they need it, and encourages them to collaborate on a range of issues. The link is https://www.sortingoutseparation.org.uk/
Regards
William
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