What is child support meant to cover?

fannyanna

daisiegg wrote: »

What other costs/expenses should the NRP be expected to cover on top of monthly child support?

Nothing. Expectations lead to disappointment.

Dunroamin

daska wrote: »

It's to help cover basics such as accommodation, food, heating. If there's anything left over (remember some people get £5/week or less) then it presumably can cover other things. What NRPs often forget is that if it is only spent on things that are specific luxuries for the child e.g. toys, private schooling, days out etc (which is what DS1's dad tried to insist on, even to the point of trying to reduce payments when he found that the school fees weren't as much as he was paying in maintenance!) there might not be enough left to feed the leccy meter.

If the PWC has accommodation paid for by HB/LHA then maintenance isn't needed to cover this.

daisiegg

Ok, does this situation seem fair/normal?

NRP pays quite a bit more than £500 a month child support.

He also pays school fees, the child's phone contract, all costs for extra curricular activities, all costs associated with glasses and braces, gives the child a monthy allowance (which the mother doesn't do), pays for the school bus, buys the school uniform, pays for things like football course in the summer holidays etc. He bought a computer and printer for the family as theirs broke and he was worried his son wouldn't be able to do homework. Every time he has a weekend with the child (regularly) he seems to be given a list of things to buy - so he ends up buying most of the child's shoes, clothes, football kit etc.

He also puts money each month into a savings account to help the child out when he reaches university age. Oh, and when the couple split up (they were never married) they sold their house (which had been bought only in his name as she was a SAHM) and he let her have 100% of the equity, to get her on the housing ladder.

I am actually related to the mother so technically should be on her side, but it seems grossly unfair to me. I am also good friends with the father (though less so since they split up, unfortunately!) and I feel sorry for him. She has a fairly decent job I think - not extremely well paid but probably around 20k. I have even been with her when shopping and she'll be looking at, say, socks for her son, and then won't buy them, instead saying "I'll make sure his dad buys them for him at the weekend".

I know it's none of my business what they do....I was just genuinely curious as to what is the norm and what the expectations are, as I have never been in this situation myself. It's interesting to hear people's opinions!

masonsmum

Personally I dont think the situation your family member is in is fair, ..... to her ex anyway, thats really bad I cant rely on my ex for anything.

I get £45 a week from my ex husband for our son, he originally gave me £100 a calendar month and I know he is on a good income of over £30K.

I went to the CSA as I was fed up watching my pennies every month and my ex goes 4 overseas holidays a year, without his son, doesnt even buy him a pencil for starting school etc.

He has now decided that because he pays this huge amount of £45 a week his son will no longer receive birthday or christmas presents as that was where the extra money he originally hadnt been giving me was going on :eek:

Thank god im not in a family unit with this man any more or my son would have no gifts due to the fact that his own father had to keep a roof over his families head! The mind boggles!

NewKittenHelp

She sounds like a scheming parasite to me.

Tiglath

When my stepkids were children, we paid a really generous amount but the ex wasn't happy for some reason. She went to the CSA who assessed all our situations and halved the amount. Anyway, we've always paid over the odds - all travel costs, hobbies, school trips, clothes, pocket money, savings, computers etc, and we've never resented it. She loves the kids and is a good Mum, and that's what counts. Technically we could've stopped paying maintenance for one of them when she reached 18, but we're continuing on a year-by-year basis as the girl is trying to establish herself in a career and the ex's second husband is very ill so they can really use the extra income at the moment. If as looks likely the girl will be coming to live with us for longterm job reasons, I expect DH will use the current maintenance money to cover her commuting costs to work rather than continue to pay it to his ex. I won't expect the girl to contribute anything to our household expenses if the work is sporadic as is likely in her chosen industry, and if it does settle into something regular, well then we'll rejig everything and figure out a reasonable contribution from her while still enabling her to save up so she can rent/buy a flat with a friend.

janninew

cazziebo wrote: »

Agree with this!

When you factor in sharing the cost of childcare, there isn't much left for essentials never mind the non-essentials from maintenance payments.

Too many NRPs (to be brutally honest, new partners of NRPs) think that the maintenance amount is frittered away by PWCs on bottles of wine and getting nails done. In so many cases, if the NRP was still part of the family unit, NRPs would be paying far more than the set maintenance for their children. Children are expensive.

Surely that depends on the wage of the NRP? My Brother is an NRP and has a salary of around £60,000, he pays the minimum as his ex contacted the CSA, I'm fairly confident that she'll have some money left after paying for the essentials! My Brother has his Son every weekend and contributes to days out, school trips, uniform etc.

daska

Some of that might be reasonable daisiegg, some of it might not. If he wants the child to go to private school then they may have agreed that he picks up all the costs associated with that which would include clothes, trips etc. But it does sound excessive. Maybe there are factors you're not aware of?

WickedWitch123

My daughters dad pays £160 pcm in csa but he absolutely WILL NOT buy anything else for them. Our youngest has just started school and when he picks her up she has to stay in her uniform until the next day as he won't buy her any clothes for her to wear at his house. They've got zero chance of anything over and above.

MX5huggy

It's all meaningless if we don't know what the the NRP is earning £500 + the extras out of £30k would be an issue out of £130k would not.