Ex-wife spent childrens savings...

ajatuk

Can anyone help... During a contact visit with my nearly 16 yr old daughter she asked me for a gym membership for her 16th. As they are very expensive I told her I would go halves, I'd give her half the money and she could use some of the money my mum has been saving for both girls since they were babies. My daughter then told me that she doesn't know how much money is left in there as she had asked her mum recently who then bit her head off and said tht a couple of hundred quid was left. When my daughter challenged this and said there was a lot more in there as this money had been saved since birth she told my daughter that she'd spent some of it 'on bills and stuff'. I'm livid-me & the ex don't get on, however I give her £200 a month, she gets £120 a month child allowance then her p/t wages plus tax credits. She lives in rented accommodation just her n the two girls. I'm at a loss as to why she needs their money for household bills when she must get well over £1000 a month. That money was my childrens fir their future-uni, driving lessons etc. Can she do this & what action can I take.

crazyguy

Probably not a lot as she can say its been used for the cost of bringing them up, £1000.00 a month for 1 adult and 2 kids does not go very far

skibadee

Disgusting....your mum should of put HER name as only person who could draw off account.

NASA_2

Where was the money? How did your ex get access to it?

clearingout

you need to work out exactly what she 'must' be getting and then consider that against your own expenditure to decide whether or not it is reasonable she has used savings to pay bills. I have managed to leave my children's savings alone but I am aware they are there and wouldn't hesitate to use them to pay bills if I had to. Teenagers are very demanding financially, girls I would imagine more so than boys due to their 'need' for clothes and the need to 'fit in' from a fashion point of view. You are not expressing that you consider mum to be living a lavish lifestyle in any way. Maybe she is struggling and if you are not communicating with her at all, how would you know? I certainly do my best to keep my financial worries way from my children so they wouldn't be telling dad about it as they don't know about it!

I suspect there isn't anything to be done about it from a legal perspective.

ajatuk

Crazyguy, I'm not sure how much she gets monthly (£1000 was a wild guess) but I think she gets help with rent etc. She also has a b/f who does pay for a lot of her household bills. She has never taken the children away on holiday, I do this, and I simply cannot believe she has spent money intended for the childrens future. This is money given to them by family members for birthdays etc and I'm sure they didn't intend the money to be spent by their mother on bills. I had residency of my daughter for 2 years and whilst I was financially struggling I would never have spent their savings-and my ex wife would have hit the roof if I had ever attempted to. Whilst I would not begrudge if I knew she was in real dire straits financially it makes it worse knowing she smokes 20 a day, drinks a bottle of wine almost nightly and goes out at weekends usually in new clothes. My daughter has come to my house this summer in socks that I bought when she lived with me over a year ago that are threadbare! I'm so sad about this

crazyguy

I dont agree with what she has done, and after reading the last post you made do feel for you, but seriously I doubt you can do anything about this, was the money for your kids held in there own accounts ?

ajatuk

...my mother (their nan) had the bank book and I'm unsure of how my ex got access to it. I would bet my bottom dollar my mum doesn't know that she has spent this money.
In response to one of the posts above, my daughter hasn't had new clothes bought by her mum in a while, we buy her stuff when she's with us. She told my daughter this money had been spent on bills & money for their holiday clothes which I took them on AND bought their clothes for.

clearingout

Again, £1k a month isn't much to be bringing up two children with. Her boyfriend may well pay her bills - but you don't know. Maybe her boyfriend buys her clothes, cigarettes and bottles of wine? Are you sure she smokes and drinks? If you have no communication with her, how could you know the detail of how many cigarettes she smokes a day or how many bottles of wine she drinks a week? If you are not communicating, how can you know she goes out in new clothes every weekend? Maybe she bought them second hand, at car boots, charity shops, on ebay? And please don't tell me that's what she's always done - I used to drink most evenings, order takeaways, buy clothes...but I can't do it now 'cos I can't afford it. But my ex wouldn't know that.

crazyguy

I think the only way you could see this back if it was taken from there own accounts is when they are 18 years old they could raise a Small Court Claim against her, wont be nice though

You should speak to CAB, if you do consider this route to verify that they can do this

ajatuk

I do think my kids - as they are nearly 16 - could have been asked/ told/ consulted before their future nest egg was raided. Maybe if my ex is struggling financially to the point that she needs to use our childrens money she needs to stop her smoking habit... 20 a day is £35 a week roughly?