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hi can anyone help
myself and ex partner have finally agreed on shared care 1 week with myself and 1 week with my ex partner as this is what our children have wanted for the past two years but my ex partner has tried to restrict our children from having this. i`m unsure what to do about child maintenance payment do i still continue to pay what i`m paying or do i phone them to let them know about the change of contact as we dont have anything written down on paper just yet or would my ex partner have to do this as she is still the main carer for our children
i have said to my ex partner that if she is struggling financially due to us arranging shared care i would still pay the maintenance so she want go short of money as her partner only works part time and my ex partner has now given up her job due to recently having depression (only since we agreed week on week off care she has suffered with depression). so now i feel responsible to pay her the full maintenance because of are children missing out on money
i dont know what to do as i`m working but on minimum wage myself and i`m finding it hard to make my money stretch
i would be grateful for any advice
thank you
If your payments are through the CMS and not a private arrangement, you or your ex would need to inform them of the change.
If you are on the old CSA system then I think you would still have to pay something, with the new CMS system, if its 50/50 shared care, such as yours, you wouldn't need to pay anything. They are in the process of moving all older claims over to the new scheme. However, without proof such as a court order, if the mother states it's not an equal split they would usually take her word for it.
It might be a good idea to discuss this with her, if she was the one that opened the claim initially, she would have to be the one to close it. Perhaps you could agree to pay something during the weeks that she has them, to help out, but not on the weeks you have them...might that work? As you say, you don't want the kids to suffer. I would ask her to close the CSA claim though, otherwise you may find they will want arrears later on down the line.
I would also discuss sharing the child benefit, if you have two children you could each claim for one, in that way you would also be entitled to claim working tax credits for the child that you claim child benefit for...I'm sure this would help.
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