Child Support/behaviour/relocation help needed

DaiJoA

Hi there, first time posting in this forum, really need some advice as to where myself and my partner stand re my partner's child support that he has to pay to his stbx for his son. I just know there is a massive war coming up - having supported him for nearly two years via a massively nasty divorce battle which is hopefully soon to end, I need to get my facts straight in this area.


Partner is the NRP. Originally CM was set via mediation at £30pw, cash paid privately per week. OH is self employed earning roughly £300 gross per week - business not going well, prices have had to be cut down a lot with recession etc. The contact arrangement at this time was that OH would have his son every wednesday night and every other weekend from Sat morning to Sun eve. Some time later his stbx decided that £30pw was not enough,and involved csa albeit on a private basis. In the meantime (not realising this csa step had been taken) myself and my child moved in with my OH, literally a few weeks after we had the csa letter, but because of my little boy, his stbx's child support was chopped down to £26pw. Much nastiness from stbx as she obviously thought she was entitled to more.

Anyway, since Feb 09-present my OH's son has delevoped an extreme behaviour problem which involves amongst other things screaming to go home to mummy every single overnight stay. We tried to cope with this but it became too much for all involved and eventually had to curtail the Weds night stays, these turned into tea-visits instead - he's 4 and just starting school so weekday overnighters would have had to have stopped anyway. Then his stbx started playing up via abusive texts & letters from csa - more CM was demanded due to the dropping of the weds night - i.e. his stbx was putting CM before the welfare and happiness of her child, because he hated staying overnight here on the Wednesday. OH managed to fight this and things went quiet after a fashion.

Since then the bad behaviour, which was denied as being a problem by my OH's stbx, started to come out at school, and then in front of my OH's ex mother in law, when he kicked the stbx very hard in front of her. A referral was made via the doctors, adhd diagnosed, he has had a few visits to a counsellor, so finally some kind of headway is being made there. Then the behaviour escalated even more and turned the Saturday night visit into a war zone - he wanted to go home, screaming, kicking and swearing at me and my OH. Eventually after much arguing his stbx agreed that he could be taken home on a Saturday night and picked up the following morning. This plan worked - needless to say the ex took the credit for 'her' plan of making our son happy!!! Anyway, I bet you're thinking now here comes yet another csa letter for more money, as we were...however, nothing has happened and she has continued to accept the original £26pw.

BUT in the last few weeks she has announced to my OH (the day before the 'to let' sign came up in the garden btw!) that she, OH's son and her new partner are 'moving away to make a fresh start', approximately 30 miles away. Because OH's son is so unhappy to stay overnight, this knocks down our contact to every other Sunday, which obviously OH and his family are very unhappy about, although clearly there is not a lot we can do about it. We have agreed to alternate pick ups and drop offs. Of course we am now waiting for the bombshell letter from the csa telling us that OH owes arrears on when the overnighters stopped - my main question is can she actually do this given that we now have medical advice that he is adhd, that he needs counselling and so this is why we had to stop them, AND that the main reason the contact has been chopped so much is because of her moving? In the csa guidebook it really isn't clear.

Sorry for the long story but I wanted to give a full back-ground picture, many thanks.

AnxiousMum

To make sure that you don't end up with an arrears notice, not knowing whether or not any applications for variation have been made by the pwc, can your partner not contact the CSA and let them know of the situation?

With regards to the time spent together, has she not negotiated new contact/variation in contact with your partner for the child once the move is made? What guidance and support has your family been given on how to deal with ADHD in a child so that you can ensure your visits are happier visits.

Honest_broker07

Interesting as most Doctors refuse to diagnose ADHD in under 6's

As to swearing it's a learnt behaviour and obviously mostly from home

ADHD kids still need rules, the issue is that it's easier not to enforce them so many don't then when you try to have rules ...

alwayspuzzled

my understanding of the csa reduction is that is 1/7 per night in average week where QC stays overnight with nrp, if this is no longer happening (they don't care why) then the disallow will no longer apply.

Kimitatsu

The new assesment can only go from the time that either one of you inform the CSA of a change of circumstances, so unless she has asked for a redetermination then the amount will still stand. When she asks for a redetermination then your OH will have the opportunity to let them know that his earnings have gone down too - so she may end up getting less money than she is on now. He will still get a disregarded amount for your little boy as well, do he will only be asessed on 85% of his income (15% is disregarded becuase of your son).

The rest of it I am afraid is totally irrelevant to the CSA, if your OH wants to formalise contact and go for a contact order all of this could be presented to the court but the court will rule in the best interests of the child and being honest from what you have said given his age and issues they would probably leave the arrangements just as they are.

DaiJoA

Honest_broker07 wrote: »

Interesting as most Doctors refuse to diagnose ADHD in under 6's

As to swearing it's a learnt behaviour and obviously mostly from home

ADHD kids still need rules, the issue is that it's easier not to enforce them so many don't then when you try to have rules ...

So far all we have been told is that is 'suspected', but seeing as it has taken over a year for her to agree that behaviour is actually an issue, the adhd thing is probably more her desire to have a label for it rather than anything that can be blamed on her - just a coincidence, of course, that the behaviour first started when she went away for a long weekend with her new boyfriend, didn't tell the child that he would be staying two nights, or that she would be going away - that was when the hatred for staying over started, and when he first told me to F off, which was nice coming from a three year old!

Anyway, I'm hoping that she won't officially drag us through the nightmare of the CSA process - isn't there some kind of rule that if you can't see your child because of distance you don't have to pay as much? I think that counts when it is a big distance though - not 30 miles, which I know doesn't sound much but adds up when its a round trip within one evening. We'll just have to see what happens I suppose - I'm just glad that with my own child and ex husband we have an arrangement whereby he pays half for everything for my son - which means that I can budget a bit more freely when it comes to big things like clothes for season changes, toiletries (which I buy in bulk) birthday parties, coats and shoes, and he knows that all of the money IS going on his child, can see the results of it, and has spare money of his own to treat my son when it is his weekend, rather than both parents being too short of cash for treats.

I know from reading this and other forums that my OH's situation is pretty calm compared to a lot of bad situations, and because I am an 'ex wife and PWC' and the OH of someone with a difficult ex, I can see things from both sides of the fence, but one thing that is glaringly obvious is that the CSA is totally, totally unfit for purpose, the rules need changing in favour of difficult circumstances, and the whole thing needs a lot lot more flexibility and fairness. Just my 2p!

Kimitatsu

DaiJoA wrote: »

Anyway, I'm hoping that she won't officially drag us through the nightmare of the CSA process - isn't there some kind of rule that if you can't see your child because of distance you don't have to pay as much?

Contact and maintenance are not linked and it is only in cases where there is excessive mileage that you can get a variation to the assesment. Whilst 60 miles in an evening is inconvenient you would not be awarded a variation to your assesment on that amount. If you could show that you were doing that 3 times a week every week to see your child then you may have more chance.

catenorfolk

**In the meantime (not realising this csa step had been taken) myself and my child moved in with my OH, literally a few weeks after we had the csa letter, but because of my little boy, his stbx's child support was chopped down to £26pw. Much nastiness from stbx as she obviously thought she was entitled to more.**

The ex partner with care really shouldnt be using her child in the fight, if she is, but I can see why she is a bit fed up with her mainainance going down because you and your child have moved in, as she would feel that mainainance for her child should come before he supports another family, as their child was there before you.. Do you get maintenance from your ex partner for your own child???

DaiJoA

catenorfolk wrote: »

**In the meantime (not realising this csa step had been taken) myself and my child moved in with my OH, literally a few weeks after we had the csa letter, but because of my little boy, his stbx's child support was chopped down to £26pw. Much nastiness from stbx as she obviously thought she was entitled to more.**

The ex partner with care really shouldnt be using her child in the fight, if she is, but I can see why she is a bit fed up with her mainainance going down because you and your child have moved in, as she would feel that mainainance for her child should come before he supports another family, as their child was there before you.. Do you get maintenance from your ex partner for your own child???

My point was that if she hadnt have got the CSA involved in the first place, my OH would have kept on paying the £30 a week, so my point was that she was being greedy in reporting him to the CSA (her reason for which was that he missed a payment - when she was on holiday!) and in doing her little bit of reporting got bitten on the bum as she actually got less instead of more. She is using her child for every single thing she can, that is why I know that once the divorce settlement has been sorted she;ll start on to the csa for more money again even though the only reason contact has dropped is because of her moving and the behaviour issues. I know see from the advice given here that those factors don't matter at all to the csa, so I shall just wait for the fight.

As to your question about me, yes I do get maintenance for my own child but not in the form of a regular weekly amount, as my ex's family live a 100 mile round trip away and I am very keen for my DS to have a close relationship with his grandparents - ex partner has to pay out a lot in petrol to see them so if I was taking say £45 odd a week (which by csa calculations I would be entitled to) this would greatly reduce my DS seeing his other family which would be detrimental to him. Ex pays for half playschool fees and half shoes, clothes which I buy with season changes, coats etc, this way it is a lot fairer, I give him a lot of notice that he'll need to budget a certain amount from his wages and it all works very well, he can also clearly see from the new clothes/shoes/playschool etc precisely where his money is going, and because I have given the notice I dont feel like I have to go cap in hand to him. I've always been very transparent when it comes to money, I have literally no interest in it at all, or material things like the latest fashions etc, in fact all my clothes are ebay or charity shop bargains, as long as the bills are paid and my child is happy that is all that matters to me - despite things at times being 'off' with my ex, I wouldn't like to think that he would be short by giving me £45 a week for my son - and I prefer it that he has this extra money to spend on DS as he sees fit, he takes him on lots of treats that I wouldn't through sheer tightwadness which is really nice for my little boy. I hope that answers the question, sorry for going on but it is something I'm quite passionate about!

Loopy_Girl

What does stbx mean?

DaiJoA

Soon to be ex - I think! - not up on what everything stands for but I think it means soon to be ex as in the divorce is nearly done and dusted :-)