Should a NRP contribute to childcare costs?

mermaid11

I believe (anyone with legal knowledge please correct me if I am wrong) that my ex (the father of my son) is not legally bound to pay towards childcare costs....is that correct?

We have a son. Due to the great conditions of my employment contract, I was able to look after him for 6 months of maternoty leave on full pay.

My ex has decided that he does not want me and our relationship anymore. (Quite a relief as he treated me abysmally..but wont bore you with that). He does want continued access to his son. He currently has him at weekends. He is happy to contribute towards the cost of him and pay child maintenance. That part is sorted and agreed.

Like most people I have to work for a living, as indeed does my ex. He has worked full time for the duration of my maternity leave. I am about to return to work. We had agreed to share the cost of childcare. Suddenly he had a change of heart and said he was not prepared to and that legally he does not have to contribute towards that outgoing.

I have been absolutey staggered by this news! We both agreed to have our child...there was always the expectation that I would return to work as neither of us is rich. I pointed out that childcare also enables him to go out to work or should I expect him to stay home and look after our son?

My answer to this is if he will not contribute half the share of childcare in order that we can both go to work...then I have invited him to have shared custody of our son with split residency. I pointed out that that way he woud be responsible for the childcare costs of our son whilst he was at work and our son is resident with him, I will be responsible for the time our son is with me and the costs involved of childcare whilst he is with me.

Funnily enough he has declined this as it would be difficult for him to work some evenings as his job requires. Added to that the fact the he would end up paying out not much less in maintenance and childcare costs and, I think, the realisation of how hard he would find it with a waking son when he has work the next day has dawned on him. I do not want our young son to be pulled from pillar to post.

Is there anyone that can explain the so called "logic" in this legality of not requiring fathrs to share childcare costs? Why should it be an expense that the resident parent should shoulder alone? We live in a day and age where childcare is necessary for BOTH parties. Surely a mother willing and able to work and thereby keeping unemployment figures down and not becoming a benefit claimant, is the better way to go...why does the system not encourage the shared cost of childcare? Am I so wrong to consider it outrageous?

kingfisherblue

Depending on your income, you might be able to claim up to 80% of your childcare costs via tax credits.

mermaid11

Let me hastily add...I was only due to go back to work part time and look after my son the rest of the week. By doing shared custody would mean our son in childcare all week and his father ending up paying roughly the SAME amount in childcare costs ALONE as he would if he agreed to maintenance and half the childcare costs while I had full residency.

Surely this is nuts????

Thank you kingfisherblue..will definitely look into that. I'm just questioning the sanity of a legality such as this? Is it me???

catenorfolk

If you only work part time, you would only have part time child care costs and you should be able to claim up to 70/80% of this through child tax credits, which would mean your child would not have to spend all week in child care.. If he pays you mainainance for the child, then part of this is for your childcare element.

mermaid11

70/80% of childcare costs is definitely worth looking into. Thank you for that. Have no desire whatsoever to see my son's father destitute...

PlayingHardball

Your ex shouldn't be asked to pay separate for child care costs. As Catenorfolk said, child support should help with that. Is your agreement with the ex a private agreement using CSA guidelines? i.e. your ex should contribute 15% of his net income (thats a guideline and there could be variances)

If your agreement doesn't cover the basics, perhaps you should rethink your agreed figure. (without leaving anyone destitute)

Loopy_Girl

mermaid11 wrote: »

Is there anyone that can explain the so called "logic" in this legality of not requiring fathrs to share childcare costs? Why should it be an expense that the resident parent should shoulder alone?

They don't. Tax credits shoulder a massive 80% of the childcare costs as explained for the very reason you commented on about a Mother willing to go back to work.

You will only have to pay 20% and some of your CS payments can cover that. So you are both paying childcare costs heavily subsidised by HMRC.

LizzieS_2

Loopy_Girl wrote: »

. Tax credits shoulder a massive 80% of the childcare costs

It depends upon household income - the maximum tax credits will pay is 80% but it could be anything down to nothing.