Travelling costs and length of journey for contact

purplepardalis

Hi everyone,

I'd really appreciate your thoughts on our situation as we're not sure what to do about it at present....

In 2007 my partner's ex wife moved with the children to live with her new bf 150 miles away, btw my OH and his ex had already been separated for 2 years at this point. At the time is was a bit of a shock for my partner. Initially she said that once a month she would bring the kids down to London and my partner would go and get them once a month (they stay with us every other weekend), so the travelling would be shared.

This has never happened apart from a couple of occasions when they've driven the kids down because it suited their plans i.e they were going away for the weekend.

It costs us just over £100 in train fares to collect them each time and a round trip of at least 6 hours with 2 trains and a tube ride.

We've never made an issue of it as we're reluctant to upset the status quo as she flies off the handle at any little thing. She stopped contact once before when my OH asked for details of the kids' doctor so he could register his details with them for emergency purposes.

We've just found out via the kids that they are moving again which will add another £20 to the travelling costs and at least another 40 minutes travelling time.

Now this is not just about the money and our time - due to working hours on Fridays they get picked up between 17:30 and 19:30 and then have to travel again. Not only is this tiring for them; in the winter it's also freezing.

At the moment the divorce is going through and we're thinking of asking that in the statement of arrangements for the children a provision is made to get the ex to keep to her original proposal.

Would we be fair in asking this or should we just put up with the travelling and the cost? From other cases I've heard about, a judge may be sympathetic and tell the ex to make the effort to enable the kids to have contact with their father - she was the one that moved so far away. We would also like to be able to use the money for the kids - taking them on holiday for example.

Thanks for reading and your opinions would be most welcome

PP

Pee

I think you need to tread carefully to avoid her moving even further away.

It's a horrid situations and the parent with the residence seems to have all the control. How old are the kids?

Is the cost deductable from wages in respect of CSA payments?

purplepardalis

Thanks for replying

Kids are age 6 and nearly 9

Payments are not made through the CSA - just by bank transfer each month but are for the amount that the CSA would set.

I'll have to have a look and what their guidelines are for this situation - I know you pay less money if the children stay X amount of nights per year but I'm not sure whether any other deductions are permissible.

We don't think she'll move much further as her new partner is from that area and has children from a previous relationship close by (alright for him!)

Pee

Gosh, so a long way off getting the train on their own - which was what I was thinking about, and might be manageable for older children...

Zara33

What factors might we take account of for non-resident parents?

If you are a non-resident parent, we might look at the amount of child maintenance again if you have special expenses of more than £10 a week, or £15 if your income is £200 or more, for:

• keeping in contact with your children (for example, if the parent with care has moved a long way away).
• supporting children who live with you who have disabilities or a long-term illness (if the special expenses are less than £10 or £15 a week, we may still take them into account).
• paying back a debt that you took on before you separated from the parent with care, and the debt was for the benefit of the family or a member of the family.
• paying boarding-school fees for children who you pay child maintenance for (we will take account of only the everyday living costs or ‘boarding’ part of the fees).
• making payments on a mortgage, loan or insurance policy to pay off a mortgage or loan on the home that you and the parent with care used to share. The parent with care and the children must still live in the house and you must have no legal interest in it.

We may also change the amount of child maintenance if you transferred property or money to the parent with care as part of a court order settlement or written maintenance agreement made before 5 April 1993. The property or money transferred must have reduced the amount of child maintenance made under the court order or written maintenance agreement. The value of your share of the property or money transferred, after taking off any unpaid mortgage or loan, must be £5,000 or more.

http://www.csa.gov.uk/en/setup/other-financial-commitments.asp

Pee

That gives you something to negotaite with. If the alternative was that much less maintenance, she might be happier to help with travel.

Caz3121

My OH has this problem too - his ex took the kids abroad initially and he had all the costs, now they are back in the UK they are 400+ miles away he again has all the costs. She sees it as his responsibility from door to door. They are old enough to fly on their own so that has reduced it to about £250 per visit (used to be double) ex "charges him" to drop them at the airport. Last visit I picked them up in London to bring them up to Scotland as I was working there and flights were too expensive and she would not put them on the local train without him paying her the £4 train fare. (his cm and travel come to over 30% of wage)

littlemissmoney

This is a bit of an aside, but are you sure you can't get the tickets cheaper than £100?? If you spend some time playing around on the internet you can normal buy single tickets in advance quite cheaply (and advance can be the night before). Have you checked out all the railcard options (e.g. family railcard)?

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/cheap-train-tickets

littlemissmoney

More train deals:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/deals/cheap-coach-train-ticket-deals

purplepardalis

Zara33
Many thanks for this - we'll look into it straight away. I'm wondering whether it would be better to go through the CSA to make the payments instead of privately!!

As for the train ticket cost, that is the lowest we can get it. We have a friends and family discount card but that can only be used if you have the children with you for the whole journey. So we do this thing where we buy the return journey without discount at the beginning but only use the Out part. Then we buy tickets using discount once we're there and use the Out part again. the return portions can be used within a month and are used for taking the kids back and then coming home without them.

I know that sounds complicated and I may have typed it out wrong!!

When I go to get them I have to have what I need to buy written out - lol !

The kids are as good as gold with the travelling and are experts at negotiating the Friday London rush hour traffic! Youngest sits with a copy of the London Lite and pretends to read it. He looks like a mini commuter :rotfl:

Zara33

Please, please make sure you have proper proof that your paying child support atm something along the lines of (payment of child support for x child/ren) if you do go via the csa otherwise the csa and the pwc can become a bit dodgy!

TREAD CAREFULLY if possible try and keep the agreement mutal the pwc could stop the contact.