CSA advice please

Blonde_Bint

For me its definately worth the 3 quid for the peace and quiet it hopefully brings with it.;)

3 quid a week for no aggro a bargain if you ask me, i'd pay 6 and think i'd got a good deal if it brings quiet to the house:j

mrsspendalot

I think so too. I'm sure she'll come round after waiting weeks for the CSA to pass payments on to her!!

Soubrette

I'm puzzled by a few points - how much clothes do you have to buy? A child comes in a set of clothes and leaves in a set of clothes. All I would do in this situation is buy enough clothes for when my child visits me and send them back in the same clothes they came in

Also perhaps it would be kinder to think of the situation from the PWC side - rather than just greedy. Because of your husband's generosity in the past she now stands to lose a fair proportion of income and in fact your husband is now unable to cover even half the costs of raising their child.

This is not your husband's fault of course but you can see why anyone would be a bit miffed about the situation?

Personally I would only pay what the CSA assessed and use the other £3 to spend directly on my child. Nothing wrong with paying more than the CSA assess in my opinion but I feel that I should be the one to decide how that bit gets paid to the child's benefit - not the PWC.

Sou

mrsspendalot

The PWC sends the child here in a set of clothes, that is it. No clean underwear, nothing. Half the time, the clothing isn't appropriate to the weather or time of year. We have had to buy pants, socks, pyjamas, summer clothing, winter clothing, coats, shoes, you name it. As she is so young, she is growing quickly, so within a couple of months the clothes need buying again to take into account the growth. The clothes wouldn't get worn more than a couple of times and then would be outgrown or out of season. It is silly and a complete waste of money. The PWC receives money to buy clothes - why can't she just send clothes for the child? She used to, and they were always sent back washed etc. Just being plain awkward!

PlayingHardball

Can't your partner work part time while studying? £7 per week won't go very far I'm afraid.

I'm afraid I feel a lot of sympathy for your PWC. I would imagine that your partners decision to study and not work will have a huge financial impact on their child in the short term, but hopefully his decision will enable him to better support their child for the future.

This isn't a critisim, rather a suggestion to help everyone be happy in this situation.

Soubrette

It is a pain when people are awkward.

I'm the PWC and it drives me crazy that the girls' dad will not buy one item of clothing for his children even though he sees one every 3 weekends out of four.

Apparently the £30 a week he pays for both children mean I have to pay for every scrap of everything (I'm sure he would even ask for packed lunches if he thought he could get away with it :rotfl:), even though he gets a deduction in his maintenance payments which take into account the fact that he is supposed to cover expenses on his weekends - including imo clothes for that time.

Although I would not dream of sending my children anywhere with dirty clothes (they do sometimes choose to go out in the most attrocious item, even stained sometimes :rolleyes:) I actually have a half sympathy with a PWC who feels that the NRP is not pulling their weight and so send them in rubbish clothes so the children's best clothes are used by the person that bought them.

However, I see them as the children's clothes so they choose what they do or do not take round to Dad's which means I get lumbered with all the clothes bill.

I am not saying that this is something you or your husband is doing but it might explain why the PWC is being bloody minded all of a sudden - her perspective of the situation being different from yours.

Sou

mrsspendalot

PlayingHardball wrote: »

Can't your partner work part time while studying? £7 per week won't go very far I'm afraid.

I'm afraid I feel a lot of sympathy for your PWC. I would imagine that your partners decision to study and not work will have a huge financial impact on their child in the short term, but hopefully his decision will enable him to better support their child for the future.

This isn't a critisim, rather a suggestion to help everyone be happy in this situation.

I understand your view completely. His decision to study was a 'get out' clause really because he had been off work for so long ill (complicated health problems, issues with work and further added to by hassle from PWC). He was going to either have to leave his job anyway or face being dismissed (occy health doctor said this was likely to happen). With his sickness record being bad, his chances of finding employment again straight away would have been limited. It seemed a sensible option to return to study, get better qualified, give him chance to sort out his mental health problems as well as his physical ones, and then be able to return to a better paid job after.

It is not only the PWC who will feel the impact in the short term - I will be taking on a huge financial burden in supporting my partner while he is at Uni (paying his debts (some of which were from when he was with PWC) for example) and I have my own 3 children to support.

mrsspendalot

Soubrette wrote: »

It is a pain when people are awkward.

I'm the PWC and it drives me crazy that the girls' dad will not buy one item of clothing for his children even though he sees one every 3 weekends out of four.

Apparently the £30 a week he pays for both children mean I have to pay for every scrap of everything (I'm sure he would even ask for packed lunches if he thought he could get away with it :rotfl:), even though he gets a deduction in his maintenance payments which take into account the fact that he is supposed to cover expenses on his weekends - including imo clothes for that time.

Although I would not dream of sending my children anywhere with dirty clothes (they do sometimes choose to go out in the most attrocious item, even stained sometimes :rolleyes:) I actually have a half sympathy with a PWC who feels that the NRP is not pulling their weight and so send them in rubbish clothes so the children's best clothes are used by the person that bought them.

However, I see them as the children's clothes so they choose what they do or do not take round to Dad's which means I get lumbered with all the clothes bill.

I am not saying that this is something you or your husband is doing but it might explain why the PWC is being bloody minded all of a sudden - her perspective of the situation being different from yours.

Sou

This was the case even when he was paying a couple of hundred quid in maintenance and wasn't having a reduction for shared care ..... his parents even have to have their own wardrobe at their house for times when they have care of her. I just think kids grow too fast to need 3 different wardrobes full of clothes. It is wasteful. The money would be better spent, imo, on doing something with the child (days out etc) or on a special toy or something than replicating clothes. The PWC has to buy clothes anyway, and receives support for that (child tax, child benefit, maintenance + their own wages), so what difference does it make if they send some of those clothes with their child for the weekend? It is still their child wearing them.

Soubrette

mrsspendalot wrote: »

This was the case even when he was paying a couple of hundred quid in maintenance and wasn't having a reduction for shared care ..... his parents even have to have their own wardrobe at their house for times when they have care of her. I just think kids grow too fast to need 3 different wardrobes full of clothes. It is wasteful. The money would be better spent, imo, on doing something with the child (days out etc) or on a special toy or something than replicating clothes. The PWC has to buy clothes anyway, and receives support for that (child tax, child benefit, maintenance + their own wages), so what difference does it make if they send some of those clothes with their child for the weekend? It is still their child wearing them.

I think it's the difference between having plenty of money and not so much. If my ex paid a fair share of his income then I would not mind paying for everything and sending them over with a packed lunch

Generally speaking as I know you have said you as a family have paid more than the recommended amount for child maintenance, for those that pay the minimum and get a reduction for nights spent over there - these people should be paying 1/7, 2/7 (or whatever the size of their reduction is) of the clothing wardrobe - this will inevitably be more expensive than if a child lives with both parents but such is life - why should one parent (whether the PWC or NRP) be stuck with the costs of all the clothes?

To go further - in an extreme case, why should one parent have to provide all the essentials but perhaps because of this is not be able to afford the nice things - then the other parent gets to spend only on the nice things - that doesn't seem fair either.

I also understand your point about the benefits that a PWC will get - but a child is supposed to benefit from the income of both parents. In this instance the PWC has to suck it up that the NRP is going to be a student and have no income - in the same way that if she were still married to him this might be the case, or if someone is on long term sick or any other instance that mean that the main breadwinners income is seriously curtailed.

I think generally we are in agreement although we might disagree on the detail

One money saving point, do his parents and you need to buy new clothes - this at least could be shared?

Sou

mrsspendalot

Soubrette wrote: »

I think it's the difference between having plenty of money and not so much. If my ex paid a fair share of his income then I would not mind paying for everything and sending them over with a packed lunch

Generally speaking as I know you have said you as a family have paid more than the recommended amount for child maintenance, for those that pay the minimum and get a reduction for nights spent over there - these people should be paying 1/7, 2/7 (or whatever the size of their reduction is) of the clothing wardrobe - this will inevitably be more expensive than if a child lives with both parents but such is life - why should one parent (whether the PWC or NRP) be stuck with the costs of all the clothes?

To go further - in an extreme case, why should one parent have to provide all the essentials but perhaps because of this is not be able to afford the nice things - then the other parent gets to spend only on the nice things - that doesn't seem fair either.

I also understand your point about the benefits that a PWC will get - but a child is supposed to benefit from the income of both parents. In this instance the PWC has to suck it up that the NRP is going to be a student and have no income - in the same way that if she were still married to him this might be the case, or if someone is on long term sick or any other instance that mean that the main breadwinners income is seriously curtailed.

I think generally we are in agreement although we might disagree on the detail

One money saving point, do his parents and you need to buy new clothes - this at least could be shared?

Sou

Hmmmm regarding his parents .... its a major sticking point at the moment to be honest. They are very much seeing PWC as daughter and my DH as son in law in the whole thing. They back her up on everything and give us very little support where there are any disagreements. No, I don't think we both need to be buying clothes, but they seem resentful of sharing what they have bought with us. So we are stuck in the most ridiculous situation where we are all having to incur expenses for clothes, when only a fraction of them will ever get worn more than once. One thing we have really put our foot down with is buying new shoes .... they have about 4 pairs though .... how much wear will they ever get? It is just plain silly.