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Hello
I am having to attend a Tribunal service early next month (Feb) in which to fight against the Child Benefit office.
I have been separated from my ex for 2 years now and over that time I have had my son staying with me for at least 50% of the time and most weeks until recently has been more than 50%. Anyway I applied to have the child benefit put into my name as I thought this would be fair as I was having my son more than my ex was. (This has now changed and we are both sharing custody of him at 50% each and soon to be starting 7 nights with each parent on a week on week off basis)
Anyway, after a lot of questions and answers from the Child benefit office and myself and my ex they decided that we were both entitled to receive the benefit but they still awarded it to my ex. I appealed against this which was rejected so I appealed to the Tribunal service under the grounds of sexual discrimination. I believe they awarded it to my ex because she is the mother and was also in current receipt of the child benefit payments.
I have to live of benefit payments as I had a car accident with a uninsured driver some 5 years ago, I receive income related ESA and PIP, I rent a 2 bedroom house and receive council tax and rent benefit. The money I receive does not cover my rent as I am told I can not claim for my son living with me as do not receive the child benefit, so I have to pay a "Bedroom Tax" as I should only have a 1 bedroom place even tough my son is with me at least 50% of the time!
Having to have to pay the short fall out of my ESA and PIP leaves me with very little money to the point that when my son is not staying with me I can not afford to have the heating on at home and most days I do not eat or eat very little so I have the money to feed and keep my son warm when he is with me. Also over the time since we split up I have had to replace ALL my sons clothes and toys as she would NOT give me any of the ones when we were together, this obviously has cost me a great deal of money for which I have had to suffer to obtain.
It is now getting to the point that without the child benefit I will NOT be able to afford to have my son for the 50% of the time that has been agreed as I am really struggling to cover food and heating costs while he is with me, I DO NOT want to have to reduce my time with my son but I do not want him to have to suffer because of the situation. surely this was what the child benefit was supposed to help cover???????
How can I manage to get the tribunal service to see that this is the ONLY reason I want to receive the child benefit not like my ex who seams to spend it on botox and having fun!
I do NOT get any financial support from my ex in any shape of form either and she knows my situation and that that this moment in time I am unable to work (I wish I could but having a C spine injury, Osteoarthritis, Fibromyalgia, Chronic Pain and Chronic Fatigue and taking a cocktail of drugs that would kill a normal person I am unable to work) If I do not win the tribunal I will lose some of the contact with my son and that will kill me as I bought him up from 3 months old full time until we split up 2 years ago (my son is 5 next month) and then like I have said shared custody.
Please please give me some advice as I am desperate as I do not want to lose the contact I have with my son!
I sympathise with your plight fishermanrus.
I have heard of this quite a few times. You and your ex-wife cannot both get CB, and there is no mechanism to split it (I remember reading about this going to ministerial level several times, and the answer is always the same). DWP can only award it to one parent, and as you each have your son for 50% I cannot see that DWP is going to make a change unless your ex-wife agrees to relinquish her claim (which from what you say seems unlikely). I think it is the case that unless a father can demonstrate very clearly that he cares for a child significantly more than does the mother, then DWP will not reallocate the CB. I don't know whether DWP would be so reluctant to change things back the other way if a father had been in receipt of CB before a separation, such circumstances would be pretty rare, but my feeling is that the bias would probably still be towards the mother (but that is just what I think, not supported by evidence).
Keep focussed on the issue at the tribunal: you are accusing DWP of sexual bias, so the other items such as car accidents, bedroom tax, disabilities and medical conditions are not relevant, if you go off on a tangent it will not help your case at all. It might be hard to demonstrate that DWP is biased (even though it probably is) to a tribunal. I think DWP would argue that it can only award CB to one parent under the government's rules, and that is what it has done.
Good fortune fishermanrus,
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Just a thought but have you thought about challenging the bedroom tax? There are organisations out there that can help you to do this, your local CAB should be able to advise......
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