Child maintenance and the CSA

Woolwich_Kim

shoe*diva79 wrote: »

Your experience is very much outdated. It sounds like your partner was on CSA1 which stopped taking new claims in 2003.

Also, since April 2010, CM has been disregarded for benefit calculations.

The correct % are 15% for 1 child, 20% for 2 children and 25% for 3 children. If a new case comes with 4 children or more then the new 2012 scheme is used which works payments out on gross pay. No outgoings are taken into consideration.

There is currently no charge to use the CSA.

his child was born in 2000 so you're probably right. My partner passed away nearly 3yrs ago so that has been my only experience.

FatVonD

HurdyGurdy wrote: »

When they broke up, he told my daughter that he would pay her 10% of his weekly income as child support. He did this scrupulously each week, right down to the penny.

Then his employers moved onto monthly pay, and he continued to make payments each month. He has since had a promotion at work and moved to another town.

He has paid my daughter today, but it is £70 less than the previous two months. She had assumed that the last two months payments reflected a salary increase from his promotion, and expected maintenance to continue at this amount. Her budget is now thrown completely. She feels that he should at least have warned her that the previous two months were not going to be the norm (he works in hospitality, so could possibly have done overtime for the past two months) or warned her that this month was going to be less than before.

No offence intended, OP, but if I'm reading correctly then he paid more than she had been used to expecting for 2 months and now it has reverted to what he usually paid her? That shouldn't have thrown her budget completely unless she has increased her spending in anticipation?

I'm sorry but can you just not look at it as he did the decent thing when he did some overtime (he didn't after all need to tell her) rather than complaining that he didn't warn her he might not be doing overtime this month?

podperson

Could she not send him a text asking if the amount he's sent this month is going to be the regular amount from now on as that's fine but she just needs to make sure she can work out a budget for the child's things. As long as she doesn't put it across as confrontational that I doubt he could get too worked up over that? It sounds like he might have done overtime and sent her extra which is nice really.

fluffnutter

Why do people persist in !!!!ing up their children's lives with their inability to let their egos go and talk to each other civilly?

I lose track of the number of threads that are basically 'he's an arse and/or she's an arse, kids are suffering'.

Sort it out, you selfish lot. Else don't have kids in the first place.

mgdavid

fluffnutter wrote: »

Why do people persist in !!!!ing up their children's lives with their inability to let their egos go and talk to each other civilly?

I lose track of the number of threads that are basically 'he's an arse and/or she's an arse, kids are suffering'.

Sort it out, you selfish lot. Else don't have kids in the first place.

in an ideal world....
however, sorting it out as you put it requires both parties to want to sort it out. It is very common for one party to be unreasonable, refuse to compromise or negotiate in any way, hence these situations.

Fosterdog

If he is only paying 10% she will probably get more through CSA (depending on overnight contact) although if his pay is likely to fluctuate month to month then his payments will too so she still won't know exactly how much she is getting each months.

It's also worth considering how much he buys for the daughter outside the 10%, if say he gives her 10% and buys her all of her new clothes, shoes, pays for activities etc. then she may be better off now (not including toys, non essentials, luxuries). If it goes to CSA he won't have to provide any more than they say he has to and he may stop buying the other things leaving it to your daughter to buy.

HurdyGurdy

Thank you all. Sorry for the tardy response.

He has the child one night a week (that is all he asked for - my daughter would quite happily let him have her more often if he asked). He keeps a set of clothes for her at his home, and won't even allow her to take a favourite cuddly toy with her. I suspect that is more because he doesn't want to run the risk of losing it, rather than because he only wants her to play with "his" toys.

There have been massive "issues" between the parents since they broke up when the child was 8 months old, which truthfully have been "six of one and half a dozen of the other", so I don't want to even start going down that road on here. I'd be here for ever!

My daughter is quite happy with the amount of maintenance she receives from him, and doesn't want to squeeze more out of him. She was just wondering if by going through the CSA, she would be more likely to get a fixed amount rather than wondering how much to expect each month.

It would be so much easier if they could just communicate effectively and either she could ask him why the previous months had been more, or if he could say "I've done a bit of overtime this month and will be paying more maintenance". I have given up all hope of this however.

I think she will just need to sit it out this month, and see what happens next month.

Thank you all again for your responses.