[Solved] C100 - contact or residency advice?

Hi Jon
I’m not going to reply to your post point by point as there’s too much, so I’ll summarise to some extent, and we can home in on the important points later on.
One thing I will say, a few years ago I was assisting a friend with a legal matter of his and went to see his solicitor with him for a chat about the case. My friend had a huge list of points he wanted to raise in court ranging from the trivial up to major points. The solicitor ran through the points crossing lots of them out, saying that however interesting they were, for the case in hand they were not important enough. The lesson was that if you swamp the courts with lots of little facts, they may well miss, or not place enough importance on, the really pertinent facts.
I would therefore pretty much forget what has gone on previously between you and your ex with regards the history of your relationship, and any new relationship she has now unless her boyfriend is a direct threat to your children. I know it’s not ideal by any stretch of the imagination, but you need to go into court concentrating on your contact with your children – if you raise lots of points about the relationship, you are going to start to alienate the court. Same goes for the point you raised about the dog, and the au pair (you wife can argue in court that she was paying for help for your children because she has to work long hours etc – a court will find this reasonable in my opinion), it’s simply not relevant and certainly not worth more than a paragraph in your statement. I would say that you don’t have enough of a case succeed in getting residency - you may not like the situation as it is, but the courts are generally quite reluctant to take children out of one home, where they are settled, unless there is a compelling case for them to do so, and from what you have said, I wouldn’t consider that there is one.
Before you start with court proceedings, have you tried mediation? You will need to show the court that you have at least attempted this. I would concentrate on the fact that you have had regular contact until recently, and that this worked very well for your children, and build up from there – that’s the most important point going forward for both your children and yourself, and the court need to see that as well. As you are not using a solicitor, I would recommend giving the Children’s Legal Centre a call – their number is on the website, and its free advice.
I would post a question to the CCCS counsellor (see the finance section of the forum) about your debt, but there are a few lines you may wish to follow. Firstly, was the debt taken out in joint names, and was it secured or unsecured? If the debt IS in joint names, then as far as I am aware (long time since I studied this area), the loan company can come after either of both of you should the loan go into arrears – and if you don’t have any money or assets, then they are able to go after your ex. It doesn’t matter that you have agreed to split the debt (though it makes your life a bit harder if you’ve done that in writing), unless the loan company agreed to that split, then they are not bound by your agreement. Second, the CSA will take into account any debt that was accrued during the marriage if it was for the benefit of that marriage, so when assessing your income for the CSA calculation, they will deduct any loan outgoings from your net take home pay when calculating the maintenance payments. Finally, I’m not a massive fan of IVAs as I feel they have been misused, it may be an avenue worth exploring in your case – the CCCS will hopefully be able to advise you. One more point, and it extends the point I made about some stuff being irrelevant – your wife’s income if totally irrelevant to the CSA calculation, whether she can afford holidays and other luxuries may seem unfair, but the system purely takes the number of children and your own income and circumstances into account for their calculation.

Hi Jon,

Thats quite a wall of text 🙂

As actd has pointed out, when making a Contact Application to the courts ensure that it is highly concise on what you are asking for. In terms of this Application it isn't expected that you put every point thats ever occurred.

The reality is that you put your arrangements previously until their current arrangement. You then need to specify what you want the court to order. In your case this may be recognised as being resident/custodian parent with a view that the order be made through shared residence but you will need to raise a residency order through the courts.

Your points 1-6 and some others will support your application for residence. In light of what has been said, i feel confident that when your children reach 12years of age, they may wish to come and live with you, especially given their seemingly hectic home life.

Relating to your point 7, this is easily remedied, you will just need to go down the the Registry Office. The application is very straight forward and the fee for the birth certificate is around £10-£15 dependant on what you are requesting.

If there are any particulars. Feel free to ask away 🙂

Guys,

Thanks for your responses.

I guess I was just hoping that if I went down the residency route I had a slim chance of winning the case and it would also show my intent but in reality after checking a few posts on various forums that I probably would not succeed, I think what Yogi says is my best hope that when my kids reach the age where they can make their own decisions they will see how they have been treated and move in with me.

I have approached my ex on numerous occaisions over the last 2 months that we should go to mediation which she has refused saying it is not needed, luckily I have this is writing.

The children were born in Germany so its not that easy to get copies of their birth certificates and it appears to be a rather long winded process, I can look into this further but I have asked her to meet me at the building society so these accounts can be set up in my name.

With regards to the debts, I did consider making my ex take a higher percentage based on her earnings but my solicitor advised this would cost several thousand pounds(that i didnt have) due to digging out every financial statement to prove the money was jointly spent, I was also perhaps a bit naive that I could cope with 50% of the debt and refinance it at a good rate, but with the current economic climate the interest free cc deals are drying up. I have managed to negotiate with 2 of my main CC debts to a reduced payment plan with no additional interest which has been a big help although I have defaulted on my credit rating for the first time in my life. The CSA were understanding to my situation and would take into account the loans but not the credit cards which is a little unfair, he said he would refer my details to the variation team for assessment.

I understand about keeping the points brief and yes I will omit the emotional and relationship comments as they are irrevelant to what I am trying to achieve which is to restablish the contact but to having a more defined consent agreement where she doesn't mess around with the time the children and I spend together.

So is shared residency a potential option that the courts may agree on?

Jon

Shared residency is becoming more popular and I would think that this would be an achievable goal, rather than full residency.

The fact that your ex won't acknowledge mediation means that you should be able to go forward with an immediate application to the court. If you do not have legal representation, you can call the Children's Legal Centre (CLC) for free, confidential advice and they'll talk you through the process of self representation. I'd recommend calling them anyway before you do anything and take their advice on what your next step should be.

It might be an idea to write to your ex one last time telling her that if she's not prepared to enter into mediation in an attempt to resolve your differences, then she's leaving you with no option other than to take the issue to the courts. I would identify a convenient mediation service and speak with them about costs and what to expect from the service. Provide your ex with all the details and ask her to provide you with a response within 14 days.

The advice from ACTD and Yoji is very good. It's hard to be objective when someone has put you through the emotional and financial ringer, but you have to endure I'm afraid. You'll need to demonstrate to the court that you're reasonable and only want what's best for the children as you move forward. The courts aren't really bothered about what's happened in the past, unless it's something that has threatened the welfare of your children. If your ex is obstructive, and she probably will be, the court and CAFCASS will no doubt recognise this.

So from now on concentrate on the only thing that matters; your children.

Good luck with everything and please keep us informed about your progress!

Hi

I don't know enough about shared residency to give a definitive answer, but it does seem like something that would be far more achievable than full residency, and might put you in a position where you could go for full residency in a couple of years if your children's life with your ex isn't stable - however, don't mention (or even hint) that you may consider this later on - if you do, your ex will fight much harder to prevent it.

If you can give details of how you see the shared residency working out, it will help the courts considerably - you need to consider access to schools, friends etc. Don't forget, the courts' primary concern is for the welfare of your children, so if you can show them that shared residency is the best option, you have a better chance of success.

Under no circumstances should you mention the consequences of joint residency on maintenance and benefits, as your ex will argue to court that your only reason for your application is financial - you don't want the court to think that this may be your motive - but be prepared that your ex may have considered this and have counter arguments ready.

Hi again,

Shared Residence Orders are becoming increasingly common and i would definately say to go for it. As we've all said it will be quite likely your children will want to live with you in the next few years.

With regards to mediation, i'll almost disagree with Filmmaker but for the following reason. If mediation turns to be a success, most (by a landslide) end up having to go back to mediation or court to get their guaranteed access. Old hostilities surface or more commonly disagreements with parenting.

If you go to court, mediation will be ordered but i would as always urge that you state any agreement made through mediation be put into a legally binding court order.

Hi Yoji

I'll ask a question here. I went to court about 6 years ago, and then again about 4 years ago. At that time mediation wasn't mentioned (possibly due to the circumstances) but my first hearing in both events was called a conciliation hearing. This was still in front of a court - the court had no power in that hearing to impose an order, but if agreement was reached, could (and did in the second case) create a consent order which was as legally binding as any imposed order was. There was some pressure to come to an agreement simply by the fact that no party wants to be seen to be being unreasonable in front of a court, but if there were fundamental disagreements, then the case progressed to further hearings.

Do you know if these conciliation hearings still exist - it seems to me to be a better solution than mediation as the end result is a court order?

Hi Jon

This guide from the custody minefield website (thanks to Yoji - I'd never heard of this website until his post earlier in the year) may help with joint residency:

http://www.thecustodyminefield.com/e-guides.html

Hi actd,

The old days have been long abandoned so to speak. Originally things like this would come before a Judge to agree upon. Then a Conciliation Hearing...

Today it involves several hearings all with a legal advisor who will see what each parties positions are. In all circumstances now (and since 6th April 2011) all parties are informed to attend mediation and usually a parenting information programme.

I agree, Courts should be how you state in your post and should be able to say why a disagreement is there and if that disagreement is valid or not. As many on here i'm sure would agree... if courts actually bothered to take the time to resolve contact issues this way it would result in no need to wait for 5-24months to get a court order in place and have the rigmarole of having to jump through hoops set by (usually) the ex-wife and backed up by the courts.

This would be much more cost effective and would make many custodian parents sit up and think "hang on a minute they aren't messing about here!"

Wow - although my case cost me huge sums, I think I'm glad the old system was in place at the time. :O thanks for that clarification.

I think the shared residency seems a viable option, I will phone the CLC for advice(thanks), I now need to find the £200 to submit the form, it could be payday at this rate!
Now trying to decipher the csa variation form, its annoying they don't take into account the non loan debts that I took on and the obvious difference in the 2 lifestyles/incomes, the system is very unfair, I will also be asking on the c100 form for the financial order to be reviewed and see if I can fix a payment via the courts, we honestly don't need to go through the csa as the children are more than adequately provided for between what we both do for them.

Thanks

Jon

Hi Jon,

I don't think the courts can override the CSA assessment. However, the variation process isn't actually too bad, though it's a bit lengthy. If I remember correctly, once you've filled in the form, they will pass it to the variation team, who will make a decision fairly quickly. If you're not happy with the decision, then you should be able to appeal (there should be details on how to appeal with the decision letter), and the case then goes to a tribunal where you go along and state your case and a decision is made there and then. You can appeal this and I think the final step, if you are still not happy (or if you are refused permission to appeal to the tribunal) is to appeal directly to the commissioner. Any hearing is quite informal and the tribunal can make a decision that doesn't necessarily have to stick the the letter of the rules - they do tend to look more at what is fair, so it's quite feasible that they could take the credit card debt into account.

Thw whole process is completely free, so it only costs you time and travelling expenses.

Hi,

As actd said al it takes is a little time. The variation at the moment are approximately 12-16weeks. If there is a credit card debt, as long as this can be linked to a marital debt and i dare say in both names. So long as you are paying this off there is a small reduction.

To give you a hint:

For every £100.00 monthly you are paying it works out at approximately £1.27 per week reduction.

The way the CSA work is that you are expected to meet the first £15.00 of every £23 worth of debt (or there abouts). But the £8 per week savings is deducted from your net weekly pay, and then the 15% calculation carried out. Of course as many on here will know this isn't a net for net value and is done solely to extract the maximum possible amount from the NRP.

Be a little wary of the fairness of the CSA. An amicable arrangement is much more suitable, flexible and promotes better cohesion!

I wish you luck 😐

Be a little wary of the fairness of the CSA.

The tribunal seems to operate slightly differently to the CSA, or did in my case. When I got custody of my children, I went through the CSA to get maintenance from my ex - the calculation rules state that the percentage is worked out on takehome pay after deduction for any pension arrangements, so my ex decided to put 100% (yes, I haven't mistyped that) of her salary into a pension scheme, with the net effect that she was paying me nothing. I applied for a variation, which was turned down because the rules had been correctly applied, so appealed to the tribunal. I was expecting that they might allow about 20% of her salary to be paid into pension, but they ruled that none of it counted and she was liable for maintenance on the whole of her salary. (she subsequently avoided paying above the £5 per week level by giving up her job and having no income)

I do agree that if you can come to an amicable arrangement, then it would be better, but that does mean that your ex would have to agree to either take a reduction in maintenance and tell the CSA that she no longer wishes to use them, or that she'd agree to take on a greater proportion of the debt.

I must say that perhaps going the whole way with a tribunal could be the best option, it would be nice for my ex to respect the difference in lifestyles and an extra £100 per month is not going to affect her but it does affect me and hopefully I can get the CSA to see that, i have even had to seek getting a lodger on/off over the last 6 months just to give me some much needed financial support, its not been the ideal scenario as I didn't want anyone else in my rented house but I have had no choice, I have even had grief from her about CRB/Police checks which I understand from the childrens perspective it was just the way the request was delivered.
To top things off when dropping the kids back on Sunday things got a little hairy as I had my first ever frank discussion with my ex and her arrogant boyfriend, bear in mind I have never spoke to him in 2 years probably due to the fact I have never liked him for moving straight in to my kids lives without respecting the whole situation, the fact he was having an affair with my ex for a number of months just added my fondness for him, its also that 80% of the time when I pick up/drop off the kids he hovers in the background like an over grown bouncer, he's bigger than me 😉
What started it off was that I politely asked if my ex had time to meet up at the building society to open the kids accounts and he butted in saying that I don't need birth certificates and why can't I link some saving accounts to my current account, I said I wanted to start separate accounts with another building society and needed id, this then escalated into a discussion about my access rights and my inflexibilty for covering dates when they want to go away without the children and my apparent bullying behaviour via email which I would say my emails were direct/truthful and to the point.
He then had the cheek to chuck in a few choice swear words, saying my debts from the marraige are my own problem and that I should better myself, naturally I took offence to his comments and did swear unfortunately and mentioned court and asked him about his relationship with his children who he doesn't see to which he told me to fill my boots with taking them to court saying I don't stand a chance, I'll need a barrister, he knows because he has been through this himself and been screwed by the system but I still question why he doesn't see his children who only live 50 miles away?
Another bombshell from this conversation is that they are planning moving to the coast(60 miles) later in the year and that I won't be able to have mid week access because of this, my ex also said the kids were being bullied at school which is news to me and naturally I am very concerned about as the kids appear happy and the school they go to is pretty thorough, luckily I have parents eve tonight so I can speak to the teachers/headmaster.
Whilst schocked about the proposed move I said they they would have to do some of the pickup/drop off's to which they said I would have to do them all unless I was going to be more flexible, saying that if they move I can't offer to give up some of my holiday time for their benefit if they live 60 miles away.
I left their house with saying to my ex that I would draw up a list of items I want changed in the consent order, the problem I will have is getting her to agreee this, obviously this possible house move has knocked me sideways and I am feeling a little deflated 🙁

Jon

Hi Jon

You've probably realised this already, but you really need to avoid being drawin into face to face arguments, if you lose your temper it can be used against you. If your ex's boyfriend is always going to be present, then I would avoid meeting her at all. Keep all communication to written, and never, ever fire off an email or text in retalation at something that's been said. If you need to reply to anything, write the reply and then leave it, go do something else, and then go back to it and think about how a court would react to your email should it go in front of them (and you can be sure, that if you have to go back to court and it can be used against you, it will be), and then re-write it. The more calm and rational you come across in court at any time in the future, the easier your task will be.

Hi all,
well I thought I would give you an update of where I am, I submitted my c100 form literally about 10 days ago and now have a court date for the first directional hearing so I am pleased with the speed in which it was processed.
Luckily my ex knocked back my sensible requests with respects to my contact and what I thought was best for the children and for me going forward so this should hopefully go in my favour, she will still not budge on midweek access which is disappointing as I am losing what i consider quality time with the kids, but I guess this will be a case of 'grin and bear it' for me for a while!
I am tempted to ask for the shared residency and the midweek access to be granted with immediate effect at the directional hearing, does anyone have any advice/opinions on this?
I should also be getting a call from cafcass in the next couple of weeks so i'll keep that open and honest and hope they see my side of the story.
Although i am not looking forward to the whole court thing I know I have done the right thing and hope I get the results I want.

Any tips for preparaton for the first hearing or any curve [censored] I might expect from my exes solicitor?

Thanks

Jon

Hi Jon,
Good luck with it all. I'd certainly be asking for all contact to be resumed immediately if possible, and in my opinion, there's no reason why you shouldn't ask for a contact order, or interim order, to include this.

Well I had my reply from the CSA and officially I should pay an extra £20 per month although according to them my ex has agreed the current arrangements can stay in force 🙄
I'll see if she does actually request the extra 20 quid but in all honesty I need it more than she does due to the debts situation.
I have my directional court hearing tomorrow morning regarding the contact and shared residence and have sorted out all the paperwork and written a little speech for me to recite once I get there.
Just out of interest I have just received a letter from a solictor(not her normal one) saying that my ex will be representing herself 😮 , does that mean that we skip the speaking to the defence bit as there is none and we both say our peace and the judge/legal advisor then makes a decison?

Cheers

Jon

Hi Jon,

If you have written a speech this might have to get read at the end as a closing statement. You will be asking her questions and she will be asking you questions.

You will need to respond to her questions/accusations (???) and likewise she will need to do the same.

The Courts generally won't put up with [censored]-for-tat and will focus their efforts on the issues of Shared Residence.

Well the court hearing was so so, there was just a judge/mediator/cafcass and admin person present in the hearing.
I said why I was there and that my ex had refused mediation when the judge asked, my ex replied she would not go to mediation with me because I am a verbally abusive person 🙄 , I guess that she sees me telling her the way she has treated me during this whole situation has been despicable and disrepectful as abusive, where as I could think of quite a few choice words to throw in her direction which could be classed as abuse 😈 , fortunately I am a nice, calm guy despite all the grief she has caused over the last couple of years, god knows how though 😕
The judge ordered us to have seperate chats with the mediators that were present to agree on going on a mediation session and that we would also need to go on a parenting course, I think that is to get us to focus on being more amicable for the childrens sake.
I explained my situation to the mediator, unfortunately she wasn't very agreeable in certain points I brought up like I don't want my ex leaving the kids with au-pairs for too many days but this is something I think can be touched upon during our mediation session, I think I just need to make it a request rather than a demand and hope my ex sees it as the right thing to do for the kids sake.
Once the mediator had spoke to us both she pursuaded my ex to sit with me so we could agree on going to another session which was then agreed by the judge. I asked the judge if I could get my midweek access given back to me immediately but she said if I wanted an interim contact arrangement I would have to write a formal statement and given how busy the court was it would take a few hours to agree so I thought that for the sake of a few extra days with the kids before they move I would cover this in my mediation session on weds and try and get my ex to agree to me having the kids on some school days over the next few weeks, I just hope the mediator agrees this is beneficial and sees my perspective with doing the school stuff as my ex is still stopping me from picking the kids up from school even on a Friday!
The judge also ordered us each to create a proposal of arrangements which needs to be submitted back to the courts by the 24th, the day after the mediation session, I think she said that this new agreement would then be drawn up into a parenting order? Am I right in thinking that I can say I actually want this drawn up in a contact order or is it the same thing or does it carry the same weight if she starts being a pain again?

cheers

Jon

Its progress 🙂

Well done for being so calm. Women can be very manipulative when Control of the Child is threatened.

Are you sure its a Parenting Order? From my understanding these are normally given to parents whose children miss school or who are in gangs/committing criminal activity? Maybe someone else has a different angle?

I'm fairly certain the Judge meant a Contact Order. You have afterall submitted an Application for Contact no? 🙂

Hi Yoji,

Yes I have applied for a contact order, I don't know whether the judge meant another form of agreement or not to be honest? I will ask the mediator on weds what the next step of action is after the weds session and explain my concerns.
On another note my ex sent me a mail yesterday saying that she will re-instate my midweek access for december, she will try to accomodate this request with the view to us avoiding needing to do statements and the interim court hearing? Please reply by this eve(day before mediation) so she can tell her solicitor/barrister to stand down and I can advise the court??
She has also asked me to provide days I can have the children late afternoons/early evenings throughout December?
I am not sure what she is playing at really,it sounds like she wants to wriggle out of the court stuff which ultimately will save her time and money especially considering she will be moving 2 hours away from the court location.
Also the request to have the children in afternoons/evenings in December puzzles me as I have only ever had the kids for full nights and with my job changing to a monday to friday shift pattern I can only have the kids for long weekends in December ie.pick up from school on Friday and drop off on Monday at school.
It would also be nice that she offered to reinstate my midweek access immediately from weds as I can then have them 2 extra nights as I would not have seen them for 17 days by tomorrow!
I just smell a rat, what do you all think?
Also as far as I am concerned I still want the court stuff officially processed and agreed, I just know that if I say that I want things to proceed she will start being difficult 🙄

thoughts anyone?

Jon

Hi Jon,

The Judge did most likely mean a Contact Order... but worth checking, just in case.

From reading the post... something doesn't quite ring true... i would be very wary. A common tactic (usually advised by Solicitors) is to offer to re-instate Contact or increase contact, only for several months later to start the denial of contact process again. This is a universal truth.

I would say to your ex that if you offer me Xnights or something what you would like regarding/concerning what you have put in your Application (while being prepared to give a little ground here and there) it might be worth it to be able to say that you will agree this and then we will have this put into an Order at the next court hearing.

You have nothing to lose. For example if your shift pattern is over a 2week rota, simply request that the Court fix your Contact (under a Defined Contact) so that your time with your children coincides with the times your shifts are free.

Interestingly, she is moving away? When is this likely to happen? What impact might this have on Contact? Again this is another tactic of controlling/manipulative mothers, if Contact will be granted... putting distance between you and your child is the next best thing to stopping or reducing Contact.

Yep she is unfortunately moving about an hour away so whilst I have applied for midweek access as part of the contact order, I knew this would be a short term thing until they officially move at the end of December, I just needed her to see I was deadly serious about the time that I have lost with the children and that I wanted a more defined agreement to stop this happening again.
The mediation session actually went ok and there was no arguments as such, just a mutual understanding regarding the kids and that I want to see them as much as possible and don't want my time with them messed around, as I said to the mediators/her that we wouldn't be here if she had allowed me to see the children as originally planned.
Whilst my ex has now agreed that I can have the kids most weekends in december and that I can now do some of the school runs and we have now mutually agreed on a plan for the new year to include alternative weekends/christmas breaks and a large chunk of school holiday time and just to keep communications business like, its so hard sitting in front of 2 people you don't know and trying to act like the last years haven't severely had an affect on your life and that you have no time for the other person sitting in the room, I did say that it may take a couple more years to be in a position to be a bit more friendly to the ex but I still have to sort my finances out and get myself into a better place, getting this contact sorted out will be one problem to reduce my stress levels though 🙂
As I said earlier my ex is not keen on doing many more court appearances and wants this tied up without it costing her more money and generally does not want me to go down the contact agreement route because of the legal fees involved.
One thing the mediators said when I highlighted my concern about the contact being legally put into a contact order because I don't want to be in this position again in 12 months time was that they could give us both a copy of the terms we discussed and agreed in the meeting which we(I) can then ask the courts to form the basis of a new consent agreement?
Apparently they have done this for other couples before and the judges have accepted it on the basis that it is best that the parents make amicable agreements that they can stick to rather than doing contact orders.
I am considering this on the basis that the mediation went ok and that my ex agreed to virtually everything I had an issue with and this will keep her in happy mode thus promoting an amicable situation going forward.
Has anyone done this before and its worked out ok? Perhaps I am being far too tolerant who knows, I just think it might show that I am willing to meet halfway....

Jon

sounds like a decent compromise. I'm sure yoji will be along to give you advice on tying it all up neatly. 🙂

Hi Jon,

That sounds fine. A Consent Order is still a legally binding Order.

I'll direct you to:
http://www.davidhodson.com/assets/documents/consent_orders.pdf

This gives you a little more information. As this is going through Courts the Mediation agreement will form its basis. I do believe however that you have to go to the Courts and sign this however thats from my understanding of it.

The effect on contact relating to your ex moving will of course be a big issue and the midweek contact may present you problems. My situation is not as complex as yours however my ex moved away around 5wks after my Court Hearings. Relatively speaking, often the distance element can sometimes help ex's get on better in general.

The next issues you may have to worry about is if you meet someone new, or she does.

Relatively speaking, often the distance element can sometimes help ex's get on better in general.

Personally speaking, the distance I would prefer is measured in astronomical units 😆

Hi Guys,

Thanks for your replies as usual, I meant to post on here a week ago but with so much going on with the kids/finances it has left my head spinning a little!

Since I last posted on here I have received a copy of the mediation proposal or should I say memorandum of understanding and whilst it is pretty much ok the bit about alternating the christmas dates does not specify that I will have the kids from 2012 which I naturally want in writing if its going to court to be put in to a consent agreement.
The court have also replied about using this document and they have said to record this as a formal order then we both need to sign the document with a cover letter explaining what we want done, this will then be referred to the judge to make an order, unfortunately this will cost £45 as a court fee which is a bit of a pain as I don't have a lot of cash anyway.
I have also received an interim court hearing date but I am hoping to get this anulled by submitting the paperwork mentioned above to save wasting the courts time if possible, I think my ex is most keen on me doing this to save her costs which I do appreciate but don't necessarily care about.
I am not sure what the best way of getting this ammended document to court, I have thought that the mediation office could amend the proposal or I could copy this into a new agreement created by myself which we can then both sign.

Does anyone have any advice on this?

In the mean time I have had some nice weekends with the kids, they are moving next week so it will be a whole new ball game from the new year, perhaps the distance may cause less interference with my ex, I can only hope just the same as I can only hope that my bitterness will fade in time, I am just in the process of putting my bank debts out to a credit management firm whilst trying to keep a float, its these things that have seriously stressed me out over the last year and my exes lifestyle just rubs salt in the wounds.
I have decided to try and go into the new year with a blank sheet and try not to waste too much bitterness/energy on my ex as its unhealthy and I need to think about myself and the kids....fingers crossed 🙂

Jon

Hi Jon,

Glad its all gone OK.

In response:
If you can agree something through mediation that is a declaration tbh i'd stick with that for now. If she then next year starts to refuse the Christmas date you can approach the Courts to get it enforced... afterall you'll have a mediation agreement backing you up.

One thing to be aware of however is that given the distance this Mediation agreement may be overruled and indeed a Judge may agree that because the move has happened this has had an implication on the actual mediation agreement. Ergo i would recommend any agreement be made after the actual move takes place.

If however you are seeking an amendment through the Courts however (and tbh i would) then contact your local courts [where the Order was made] and they can arrange that the Court Order be amended accordingly.

Happy New Year everyone, lets hope its a better one than last year for the majority of us, saying that I am on here to have a rant and let off some steam!
As you know my mediation went well and I tailored the document we got back from the mediators to be sent to court to be put into a consent/contact order as the judge sees fit, I also asked if the other hearings could be cancelled to save wasting the courts time and to keep my ex sweet as she will be the one doing the travelling and losing mega money taking a day off work.
Well I was hoping for a nice fresh start and no difficulties and keeping things amicable but it seems she is up to her old controlling tricks, as you know she moved about an hour away from me and the kids started their new school last week.
Part of what we agreed in mediation was that I could pick the kids up from school providing I give her a few days notice, so my email went out on Monday saying I will be leaving work early and would like to pick the kids up from school and asked her what the collection time was and do I just wait outside the school gates to which she replied that she suggests I collect them from home and they can explain the process of being picked as its too complicated to explain?
What I was hoping for was a nice reply saying yes thats fine and this is the new process, nice and simple and amicable and of benefit to me and the children.
Now I don't know if she knows the process herself as she has an aupair do most of the school stuff but I said she needed to explain the procedure and that I had given her enough notice to accomodate this request and I was looking forward to picking the kids up from their new school for the first time, I also said I was looking forward to a year of us both being accomodating in each others requests and remaining amicable.
I then get a condesending reply that I should not give her notice and discuss with her first before I make special arrangements to leave work early on a Friday and that I can pick the kids up at 4 as a concession(an hour early) this time.
To top it off she brought up the CSA again and that I havent paid her arrears or increased my monthly payment to her and how embarassing it would be if I had an attachment to earnings, the funny thing is the CSA said to me a few months back that the figures show I should pay £20 extra per month but my ex had agreed she was happy with the current arrangements.
This type of thing just peeves me off when she is going on multiple holidays and moving house and I have literally just defaulted by bank debts to a recovery firm so I reduce my monthly outgoings 🙁
I have basically said to her it looks like what we agreed in mediation is not working and that perhaps we should do the interim hearing etc so she can explain to the judge why my first request has been refused for no real reason and I have asked to respect my situation with regards to the maintenance payments and explained what the CSA told me, I also said at the end of the day this is her choice and demanding money from me given our huge differences in financial circumstances is not going to create a good relationship going forward.

Rant over and watch this space

Im new to the forum, after 2 years of trying to be a patient man Ive now found myself the proud owner of 3 C100 forms 🙁

I managed to get a great deal aof advice from this old thread and Im wondering if (after over a year - granted) you would be kind enough to update us (ME!) on your success over the past 12 months?

Ill be introducing myself to the forum this evening and thanks to everyone for a great place to come and chat 🙂

Thanks

G

Hi there G

I think this member hasnt visited the forum or posted since Jan 2012 so we've had no updates I'm afraid. There is a percentage of members that join to get some advice and support but dont carry on visiting afterwards....its often the way with forums!