CSA and working nights.

pol-zeath

Nobody is suggesting the children walk from your ex's to school, but if you change to day work they can stay at yours.

You may or may not earn less money for working days.Why don't you put your details into the benefits calculaor with an estimated daily wage and see how much credits you would receive.

clearingout

You sound like you are desperately trying to hand onto your relationship with your children and in the process, denying your ex the financial support she really should have (legally) when the children are with her.

Has she threatened to be difficult about contact if the children are with her? You do know that at their ages, they can effectively decide where they want to be and you will struggle getting a judge to believe you when you say they somehow need you to pick them up and ferry them around. Is the distance between your house and your ex's considerable?

You have been given good advice here. If your ex seeks legal advice, she will be advised to make a claim on the benefits and all things considered, I suspect she would 'win'. You really do need to be picking your battles. Have you considered mediation?

lazer

Yes legally the children do appear to live with the mother, however practically they live with their father.
He buys their clothes, he feeds them, takes them on holidays, presumably looks after them when they are sick, all the thing the resident parent does.
The mother makes them 1 evening meal and then they go to sleep. She sees rhem awake for 2 hours a night probably, the father sees them awake for far more!

Cases like this is exactly why the car and benefits systems doesn't work it doesn't recognise arrangements like this!

Blackpool_Saver

I have just come back to this post and I thought you had problems before but now after reading your remark about her time of the month, I am even more convinced you are a self centered individual who needs to put their children first and get a grip

HoneyNutLoop

I appreciate I am late to this thread and the op may be long gone, but here is the relevant law for this situation and CMS calculated payments, taken from the Child Support Maintenance Calculation Regulations 2012:

CHAPTER 4 SPECIAL CASES
Parent treated as a non-resident parent in shared care cases 50.—(1) Where the circumstances of a case are that–
(a) an application is made by a person with care under section 4 of the 1991 Act(a); and
(b) the person named in that application as the non-resident parent of the qualifying child also provides a home for that child (in a different household from the applicant) and shares the day to day care of that child with the applicant,
the case is to be treated as a special case for the purposes of the 1991 Act.
(2) For the purposes of this special case, the person mentioned in paragraph (1)(b) is to be treated as the non-resident parent if, and only if, that person provides day to day care to a lesser extent than the applicant.
(3) Where the applicant is receiving child benefit in respect of the qualifying child the applicant is assumed, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, to be providing day to day care to a greater extent than any other person.
􏰀1(4) For the purposes of paragraph (3), where a person has made an election under section 13A(1) of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 (election not to receive child benefit) for payments of child benefit not to be made, that person is to be treated as receiving child benefit.􏰁

So op, while you would, as the child benefit claimant, initially be presumed to provide a greater level of day to day care, when the nature of the exact arrangements comes to light your ex cannot be considered a non-resident parent.

Based on what you have said on this thread, fortnightly your children spend 11 out of 14 nights with your ex (5 nights a week plus every other Saturday). You also say they have tea at your ex's 3 nights a week, although it's not clear if you're including the alternate Saturdays within that, or if that is extra. I have presumed below that it is extra.

So, they are with you from 6:15 to 8:15 am Monday to Friday, at school til 3:30pm, and then presumably with your ex from 3:30pm to 6:15am three nights a week (when they have tea with her) and from 8pm til 6:15am the other two nights, plus alternate Saturdays.

As others have said, they are clearly with her vastly more than they are with you; the fact they are asleep for a good portion of the time does not discount that time, nor what she feeds them for tea. Under this arrangement, and the current law for CMS cases, she simply cannot be classed as a non-resident parent as she has care of them to a greater extent than you do.

So, if you put in an application, you probably won't receive anything. You will also probably provoke some form of negative reaction from your ex, which may mean:
She is less accommodating about the care arrangements. You have said if she didn't have the children with her overnight, you could not do your job and would have to go claim benefits. That seems like quite a big lose-lose situation for you;
She could decide if the current arrangements are to continue, she will submit a claim for the child related benefits and child maintenance from you. If she were successful, that again would be a big lose-lose outcome for you.

So what can you do about the debts? Well, that initially will depend on whose name they are in? But your solution does not lie within the child maintenance scheme.