[Solved] When does Child Benefit stop

Hi

Child maintenance is paid until age 16, or 20 if the child is in non advanced, full time education, which also includes some approved apprenticeships.

If your son left education last July and isn't on an approved apprenticeship, then payments should have stopped in September. If the mother is still claiming Child Benefit this may be why your payments haven't stopped.

If you feel that the CSA have got it wrong they have a complaints procedure and you can appeal any decisions that you disagree with.

Hi all, any advice would be welcomed.

I have not seen my 2 girls for 18 months, my ex has told them incredible lies about me and she is clearly affected by Parental Alienation Syndrome www.parentalalienation.org.uk

Please can you pass the website above to as many people as you can, this is a real affliction and awareness of it in the UK is almost zero.

I have been paying £1400 per month in child maintenace for my girls who are now 18 and 14. My 18 year old was removed from the CM calculation in August this year, however I am almost certain that she had a job since August 2014 and I was still paying CMS.

CMS will not look in to is as they say my ex was in receipt of Child Benefit, so CMS was still valied, Child Benefit will not speak to me about it, does anyone know how I find out if I have overpaid and she has been claiming CMS fraudulantley?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Hi
Unfortunately, the only one who can check if she is claiming fraudulently is the Child Benefit Office and they have a bad record of looking into these things, and even if they did. they wouldn't share the information with you anyway, so there's not great deal you can do, and even if you could find out, you would be extremely unlikely to be able to claim back overpayments. The system is extremely poor in that there is virtually no discouragement for the resident mothers to claim fraudulently.

Hi , my 19 year old son is just finishing his 2 year at college and is studying towards an HND in drama, he is making no effort to getting some part time work during the summer and I feel the only way to encourage him is to stop his payments, I am happy to keep paying and will put the money aside for the time being but ,as you can imagine his mother who I pay the money to is not best pleased so what is my legal standing giving that he is 20 in December and studying for an HND which by government standards is advanced education.

Hi there

If you have a family based arrangement it is up to you both to negotiate a payment schedule and the CSA rules are usually used as guidelines to work out a fair settlement. CSA guidelines state that if your child is in non advanced, full time education then you are expected to pay CM at a percentage of your income. The cut off point is when a child leaves education or turns 20, whichever comes first. Once a child leaves, the payments continue for a few weeks afterwards to allow for transition, so if a child leaves education in July the payments would continue until the beginning of September.

In December his mothers entitlement stops anyway, it might be better to compromise and agree to pay until September in the interests of fairness.

All the best

When my son reaches 16 can i pay him direct.I dont use the CSA.I have a private agreement with his mother

Maintenance should be paid until the age of 20 if the child remains in full time non-advanced education.

You can only pay it direct to your son if the mother agrees to this. If she doesn't, she can open a CMS claim for the maintenance if you refuse to pay her.

My daughter turns 18 in July, she also finishes college in July and wants to go onto uni
Is uni classed as a full time non advanced education, if not, do my child maintenance payments stop in September?

Hi there

Uni is classed as advanced education, so maintenance should stop. Generally, even though she finishes in July, payments will continue until the beginning of September, to allow for transition.

However if you pay through the CSA and the mother doesn't inform them or the child benefit office of the changes, you might find you will be expected to continue paying. It might be a good idea to contact the mother to clarify.

All the best

My daughter is 19 in October and works full time. She does not go to uni or college and currently I pay her mother monthly as I have done every month since I left them in 2010. I am wondering when I can stop paying her mum.

Hi there

Is your arrangement just between yourselves, or through the CSA?

If it's a private arrangement then it's up to you both to re negotiate the terms of the payments. Generally speaking if a child has left full time education and is over 16 then maintenance no longer has to be paid.

However if your Arrangement is via the CSA then it would be up to the parent that opened the claim with them to contact them and report the changes. If the mother has continued to claim child benefit and not reported any changes, the CSA would expect payments to continue.

Thanks for the reply. My daughter left schoool at 16, despite doing an apprenticeship she has quit them and is now working full time. She still lives at home with her mum (and mum's partner) and my daughter drives too. We haven seen each other only once this year and my feeling is what am I paying for? Her mum is a headteacher, the partner works as does my daughter.

The arrangement was made between myself and my daughters mum and I've always paid over what I should anyway. I just feel the time is right to stop and certainly reduce the payments. I feel a little guilty doing it as it was me that left them 6/7 years ago but I also know that I've paid for far longer than I needed too right?