Im I a mug?

juliedawn001

furgasm wrote: »

Sorry -

Am I a mug??

As part of my divorce process I agreed (in writing) with my ex wife (via her solicitor) to pay support for my eldest son on a monthly basis and have been doing so for just over 4 yeras.
He is now 22.
The wording being - until he has completes his Tertiary education! ?
Studying just the one subject, he attends a local university for a couple of hours 4 days a week
Not for the want of trying, I have no contact with as he chooses to have nothing to do with me. Ive not seen him for 5 years yet I continue to pay for a child (Man) that wants nothin to do with me!
I dont want to cut out payment all together but feel that it could be reduced?
I would appreciate any thoughts
Thank you

My 19 year old son has just finished his first year at Uni (apart from 4 exams) he is back in his home town renting a room from his elder brother for the summer ( he reckons brother needs the money more than we do- his words not my actions!). My total input for the yeat £100 for petrol - which he offered to pay- towards taking him and his belongings and collecting him and 90% of belongings. Ok he will end up in student debt but his arguement is he wants to go to Uni, he can work part time & he is an Adult! I must add that both myself and his SD would happily help where we could. His own father has not supported him in 5 years (but that is another story)
So personally I think you need to decide
a - how much help does he need
b - do you want to help
C - how much would you want to pay
d - do you think he could work part time?

If you have a court order to help with University it is down to you to get this altered if you think he is extracting the mick.

suited-aces

wordsfan wrote: »

It amazes me that parents without care continually complain about the minimal amount they pay in maintenance. If they were still with their child's parent how much would the child be costing them? a lot less than maintenance is calculated at. My ex made a big deal of telling my 9 yr old daughter how he pays " a whole £200 a month". Then I explained that this amount doesn't even cover for arguments sake half of;

3rd share rent and council tax for her
3rd share of utility bills
food
clothes
shoes
school costs
over the counter medications

If your son is attending university then at least he's driven and ambitious. As for the fact you no longer have contact with him, I highly doubt that's just down to him.

I really have no idea why PWCs get such a bad rap...

Caz3121

wordsfan wrote: »

It amazes me that parents without care continually complain about the minimal amount they pay in maintenance. If they were still with their child's parent how much would the child be costing them? a lot less than maintenance is calculated at. My ex made a big deal of telling my 9 yr old daughter how he pays " a whole £200 a month". Then I explained that this amount doesn't even cover for arguments sake half of;

3rd share rent and council tax for her
3rd share of utility bills
food
clothes
shoes
school costs
over the counter medications

If your son is attending university then at least he's driven and ambitious. As for the fact you no longer have contact with him, I highly doubt that's just down to him.

Can I ask what you think is the correct amount. If, for example, your daughter was living with your ex and he was receiving the CB, tax credits and whatever other benefits you currently receive and you had your income only to support yourself how much would you contribute given that £200 is not enough I assume the amount will be far higher

Kimitatsu

furgasm wrote: »

Sorry -

Am I a mug??

As part of my divorce process I agreed (in writing) with my ex wife (via her solicitor) to pay support for my eldest son on a monthly basis and have been doing so for just over 4 yeras.
He is now 22.
The wording being - until he has completes his Tertiary education! ?
Studying just the one subject, he attends a local university for a couple of hours 4 days a week
Not for the want of trying, I have no contact with as he chooses to have nothing to do with me. Ive not seen him for 5 years yet I continue to pay for a child (Man) that wants nothin to do with me!
I dont want to cut out payment all together but feel that it could be reduced?
I would appreciate any thoughts
Thank you

Furgasm - who are you paying? Your son or your ex wife? I realise that you say he is at a local uni but is he still living at home or does he have digs of his own?

Do you actually have a consent order that has gone in front of the court as part of the divorce settlement or was it an informal agreement overseen by her solicitor? If a consent order then you need to go back to court to have it altered and clarified with an end date, if it is an informal agreement then you could write to her and tell her you are giving her a reduced amount of money (she may be upset but she will have to get a consent order to make it legally binding).

Wordsfan - I think that is unfair. Legally the OP's liability has already been discharged had he chosen not to pay and the PWC had had to go through the CSA, then he would have a nil liability currently. The majority of Uni students do less than 16 hours a week on a full time course and work whilst they are at Uni, in order to pay their own bills etc. Having a child is not a passport to paying for your accomodation, council tax etc and as the OP's "child" is technically an adult now, then I dont understand why anyone feels that he should HAVE to pay for him, regardless of whether he wants to or not. If the child was under 19 then the liability would be 15% of the OP's net income not 33%.

clearingout

but surely children do make some kind of contribution towards the costs of property? I have three children, I had them with a husband who thought the grass was greener so he left us....I have to house them and I need three bedrooms to do that. If I were on my own, I'd only need one and if I wanted to have them overnight sometimes, I'd only need two as they are all the same sex. As a result, my bills are all higher - Council Tax is more, even if I get a discount as a single adult, it's still more on a 3 bed house than a 1 one bed flat...a house costs more to heat? water costs are higher? I need more hot water for 4 of us than I would for one of us...

It's being a bit pedantic, I know, but there are utility costs to have children, surely, even if a child isn't directly responsible for paying the bill?

and from a divorce perspective, aren't you classed as needing a bedroom for a child who is at university? so shouldn't there be some support for that?

Having said all that, you need an end date, definately yes!

pelirocco

wordsfan wrote: »

It amazes me that parents without care continually complain about the minimal amount they pay in maintenance. If they were still with their child's parent how much would the child be costing them? a lot less than maintenance is calculated at. My ex made a big deal of telling my 9 yr old daughter how he pays " a whole £200 a month". Then I explained that this amount doesn't even cover for arguments sake half of;

3rd share rent and council tax for her
3rd share of utility bills
food
clothes
shoes
school costs
over the counter medications

If your son is attending university then at least he's driven and ambitious. As for the fact you no longer have contact with him, I highly doubt that's just down to him.

And maybe your ex being your ex isnt just down to him ?

Kimitatsu

clearingout wrote: »

but surely children do make some kind of contribution towards the costs of property? I have three children, I had them with a husband who thought the grass was greener so he left us....I have to house them and I need three bedrooms to do that. If I were on my own, I'd only need one and if I wanted to have them overnight sometimes, I'd only need two as they are all the same sex. As a result, my bills are all higher - Council Tax is more, even if I get a discount as a single adult, it's still more on a 3 bed house than a 1 one bed flat...a house costs more to heat? water costs are higher? I need more hot water for 4 of us than I would for one of us...

It's being a bit pedantic, I know, but there are utility costs to have children, surely, even if a child isn't directly responsible for paying the bill?

and from a divorce perspective, aren't you classed as needing a bedroom for a child who is at university? so shouldn't there be some support for that?

Having said all that, you need an end date, definately yes!

I dont disagree with you CO, it certainly costs more to house and feed the children than it would on your own. But I do see it from the point of the NRP's when some PWC's jsutify it to make large claims. I can see that if you have a fridge its on for one of you or 10 of you, but the size of the fridge would change!! Equally as you have said about Council Tax, whilst you get a discount then you could live in a one bed flat without the children so your costs would be lower.

I think my point was that liability under the CSA (well CS2) is capped at 25% of their net income so to routinely expect more than that is unfair. Whilst I agree that most pwc's had their children when they beleived that they would benefit from two lots of income etc, the benefits system does help to defray some of those costs - more so now that CM is not included for any means tested benefit at all!!

So I can see from both sides that the PWC is left holding that baby and has increased costs but that the NRP cannot justify 1/3 of their wages going to pay for that baby.

Caz3121

Kimitatsu wrote: »

So I can see from both sides that the PWC is left holding that baby and has increased costs but that the NRP cannot justify 1/3 of their wages going to pay for that baby.

but it is not always someone left holding the baby...my husbands ex went off with another man taking his 2 children, he handed over 50% of his wages for years, lived as a 38 year old man in his parents spare room to fund her lifestyle in a house with pool abroad....and it was never enough, when he got a 1 bedroom flat she said he should have got a bedsit as it would have been cheaper so he could give her more.

Now the money from benefits and maintenance is due to stop for one of the children so she is throwing him out. He is coming to us and it turns out the course he is going to do is not classed as advanced so we will get the CB and in theory maintenance from her (they will have one child each)

I would say the chances of her even considerring that she is responsible to pay anything is very remote even though she has spent years talking about how much it costs her to keep the children (with £21k in benefits and maintenance she has never needed to work more than the 16 hours required to get the most from the system)

mitchaa

clearingout wrote: »

but surely children do make some kind of contribution towards the costs of property? I have three children, I had them with a husband who thought the grass was greener so he left us....I have to house them and I need three bedrooms to do that. If I were on my own, I'd only need one and if I wanted to have them overnight sometimes, I'd only need two as they are all the same sex. As a result, my bills are all higher - Council Tax is more, even if I get a discount as a single adult, it's still more on a 3 bed house than a 1 one bed flat...a house costs more to heat? water costs are higher? I need more hot water for 4 of us than I would for one of us...

It's being a bit pedantic, I know, but there are utility costs to have children, surely, even if a child isn't directly responsible for paying the bill?

and from a divorce perspective, aren't you classed as needing a bedroom for a child who is at university? so shouldn't there be some support for that?

Having said all that, you need an end date, definately yes!

When your children move out, will you still live in this 3 bedroom house or will you downscale to a 1 bedroom? If you downscale to a 1 bedroom, I assume you will make money in doing so? If so, will you split that profit with your ex as he of course has paid for you all to live there. (Why should you solely benefit?)

Housing, utility and council tax is a very cheap shot to play in justifying child maintenance especially giving the fact our welfare system is extremely generous. I think we all know the NRP usually gets the raw end of the deal financially. Many PWC use the benefit money they receive as their share:eek: It should be £200pm from NRP, £200pm from PWC + benefit money on top. Somehow, it never works out like that though.

clearingout

I agree Kimitatsu. The issue really is a one size fits all system will never do what it's meant to do! But it's also about responsiblity, and we know full well there are NRPs who will bend over backwards to make sure their children have everything they need and will go without to acheive that, just as there are parents with care for whom blood, sweat and tears will never be enough. And those of us who are using this kind of forum have experience of one or both of these scenarios! I suppose the real question to ask is, just how many PWC and NRPs are able to sort out maintenance without the 'help' of the CSA and/or who feel that the rates set are reasonable? I for one would be happy with the amount my ex has been assessed at (even if it's not based on his real income!) if only he'd pay it!