Child Maintenance (CSA) questions (merged)

chardonnay_2

quite saddened by this thread. my partner paid at the highest £750 per month and at the lowest £500, when based on his salary should have been paying £360. he would give anything to see his kids more, in fact we would have them full time. what difference does a new baby make to the time you should spend with them. it is actually the boys mum who stopped my partner having them every weekend (we do see them slightly more now but this is mainly due to it suiting her).

we didn't grude paying for the boys, what upset us was when we were paying £310 - £140 more than required by csa we were made out to be the bad ones by her. it was our fault that they couldn't have x + y because dad didn't give her enough money, when she was using the money to pay all the bills and had given up the job she had when they were still together so she could get more money & legal aid so she could hassle him and me with solicitors letters. (this job was at the weekends when we had the boys anyway)

she used to phone mil and cry that she couldn't afford the boys shoes!!!!!!!!!!

my partner had also been transferred 200 miles away by his work and he paid all expenses to see the boys every second weekend.

Lady_S

sammyy wrote:

I wish I had a pound everytime I have heard an ex say that they are paying for the ex missus luxury lifestyle.If people want to move on and have another family,fair enough,but the first born children still need feeding and clothing.I have yet to meet all these designer clad single mums that are being kept in the lap of luxury by the hard done by ex-husbands.

You make it sound like people leave their ex's willy nilly. It takes two people for a relationship to fail, its not like men just sit there and !!!! i need a change lets go and find a new woman..,

Oh, and im a woman by the way.

I personally think that the CSA system is completely f'ed it doesn't take enough into account of what happens. But hey, lets hope it gets shut down and we actually get something that works in the future for everyone.

sammyy

Lady_S wrote:

You make it sound like people leave their ex's willy nilly. It takes two people for a relationship to fail, its not like men just sit there and !!!! i need a change lets go and find a new woman..,

Oh, and im a woman by the way.

I personally think that the CSA system is completely f'ed it doesn't take enough into account of what happens. But hey, lets hope it gets shut down and we actually get something that works in the future for everyone.

The fact of who is to blame for the relationship breaking up is neither here nor there as far as I can see!!!The OP stated that he earns excellent money but doesn't see why he should be paying more for his childrens up-keep now that he has less parental care.You say that the CSA is screwed up.Personally I think the real problem lies in the way alot of absent parents (not all though.I know that there are some excellent fathers out there that do all they can for their children)use their power over maintenence payments to control how the ex lives their life.This is what is f'ed up ,as you put it.The OP has moved on in life and thats great but his children are not the ones to be baring the brunt of that.By the way,I am a woman also.But happily married so don't have me down as some bitter and twisted ex-wife. :rolleyes:

helen21_2

Lady_S wrote:

But hey, lets hope it gets shut down and we actually get something that works in the future for everyone.

No system will ever be fair and work whilst NRP's think it is ok to shirk there responsibilities, once a child is born, they are there forever, not till a parent finds someone else, or has another child! It shouldnt matter where faults lie between 2 adults it should matter that a child is born and that parents should be responsible for these children till they are of age, not till they become a part of circumstances!

aroma44

nearlyrich wrote:

I am not intending to offend here just trying to put another side of the situation. If you have children you are responsible for them, (and to be fair it seems that you are paying a lot of maintenance for your 2 children, I never got more than £100 for 2 per month so I worked fulltime to support them.)

Reading your question " why should the government get most of it", to me that sounds like you are saying the state should pay benefit to your ex and that you should top it up with as little as you can get away with.

If you think it's OK to let the taxpayer pick up the tab because you have moved on and taken on another family them my question to you is why should the taxpayer pick up the bill?


If you were still with your ex as a family you would be paying most of your earnings into the family "pot" and you wouldn't expect the benefits system to pay out even more.

Not sure if you are aware but if the parent with the child/children is claimimng Income Support then he/she is only allowed to keep £ 10 per week. So my ex has to pay £76 per week to CSA I get £56.20 Income Support plus £10 from CSA then they keep the rest. In January he has a substatial pay rise and the CSA payment will go up to £110 per week but I still will only get £56.20 income support and £10 from the CSA (thats £10 for family not per child) he wants to pay me direct for the kids but as I am on Income Support the rules say that it has to go through CSA unless it will cause me or kids harm if they approach him!

I don't want to claim benefit and am trying to find work but without family in the area to help with childcare I will need a pretty spectacular job to pay for before and after school care and school holidays. Having been a daytime stay at home mum (I've worked weekends and evenings/nights as my husband cared for the kids then) I feel that as the separation is so recent and me and the kids have just moved they are adapting to enough major changes at the moment.

jezbo

I'm saddened by this thread too. People refuse to see that I DO have the best interests of ALL my children at heart. I'm not playing favourites. I just want what's fair, and to give my new baby all the opportunities that my girls have had, including being able to see his grandparents. And yes I am looking at all my finances quite carefully, makin cutbacks as necessary. I'm not really mad at my ex, she's not a fool and will get as much as she can. I'm just mad at the system. How can it claim to be correct and fair when the "new" rules result in about only half as much ?

phatbear

I just noticed this post and thought I would air my partners circumstances. A brief background is:

She was married to hubby for a 14 years, which bore 3 children, 1 now aged 13 who lives with his father and 1 aged 12 and 1 aged 10, whom lives with myself and my good lady.

Due to him working in an enviroment where all the work is cash in hand, he has made it quite clear that if we chased him through the CSA we wouldnt have a hope, also he lives in a flat provided by his mum so if push come to shove he would claim all of his money goes on rent and of course she would back him up.

My other half and I dont do bad, her income is gross approx £20k and mine is just over £25k, however given she knows his financial past he has always stated that he wont get out of bed for less than £200 a day, which isnt bad when you consider its cash in hand.

Anyway the bottom line is this, since their split he has given my other half a weekly chq for £25 for the 2 children, so £12.50 per child per week. Of course in the modern climate this doesnt go far and we try and do our best for the kids and try and get one holiday a year for them, however he takes great pleasure in mocking our situation by this year alone going to thailand for 2 holidays, each of which was 3 weeks long and 1 time to las vegas, and one time to Norway for a week.

With so much bad press for the CSA and knowing that if we did chase him it would be nearly impossible to prove owt we have to make do.

Sorry to say theres no point to this post just needed to rant and share another situation to the ones already mentioned.

Rant over

All the best


The Bear

jellyhead

how much does your ex work? if it's less than 16 hours a week and she's on income support won't she NEED the whole CSA amount just to live on? if you pay her directly then income support will look at the CSA assessment, say that she has X amount from you to live on and reduce her income support accordingly - therefore any money you pay into childrens account instead of to her is reducing her money to below the amount the government says she needs in order to feed her children. it might also affect her housing and council tax benefit.

if she does work 16 hours or more and is on tax credits then how she persuaded the CSA to reassess the claim is beyond me, they don't seem to get involved for many people on tax credits. if she works 16 hours a week this seems quite reasonable to me. you would prefer for her to work full time and earn 30k a year but wouldn't that be horrible for the children? they don't have a father around much and you want them to spend all day in childcare without a mother? i'm a volunteer in school and i see kids with full time working parents, they have breakfast in childcare, are walked to and from school by childcare and have their evening meal there too. school lunch, so that's all their meals without a parent, playground at school without a parent and in the school holiday it's 40+ hours a week in childcare. it's not nice and those children are NOT happy. it certainly doesn't help with socialising, they're all friendless and emotionally immature. their parents probably think they're okay, some of them probably waited until the children were school age before working full time but those children are not okay. even school age children need a parent. your ex might also dream about working full time and earning 30k, being able to afford holidays etc. but perhaps she's putting the childrens emotional needs first and making sure she's there when they need her.

the only solution i can see is for your wife to work part time while the baby in nursery, she could pay towards her trips back home then, or for her to use playgroups/toddler groups instead of nursery, they're just as good for socialisation but they only cost around 50p a week. she doesn't need a car. my husband has a car, i don't. i can push the pram or get on a bus/train etc. it's possible to manage with one car. if she does the weekly shopping while you're at work she could get you to drop her off at the supermarket before you start work, that way she'll have the car seat with her and can get a taxi home (or both ways). or she could walk to the supermartket, do the shopping and you could pick her up on your way home from work.

Dora_the_Explorer_5

Why not look at it another way. You don't want to play favourites. You believe your new baby and wife are entitled to go abroad four times a year so to be fair your two daughters are entitled to that too. Either you can take them or if that's not possible because of other more important committments you'll have to pay someone to accompany them, probably their mum. How much would that cost averaged out over 52 weeks? How will you explain to your daughters that your son can frequently go abroad but you won't give them the same opportunity?

jellyhead

sorry if my post sounded like i'm against working mothers, i'm not. i was referring to FULL time childcare not part time. plenty of children use part time childcare and have meals there sometimes, some couples stagger their working hours so one has the children some of the time they're at work etc.

i just didn't like your suggestion that she should work full time. i'm assuming she doesn't have a partner to do some of the childcare (and your wife won't be doing it either), and you'll be at work therefore the childcare would be full time.