Child Maintenance for Dad

chazzie83

Hi

I'm after some advice i've been separated from my wife for nearly 4 years we have a 6 year old daughter. I usually have my daughter every other weekend or sometimes three weekends a month.

Due to my ex's work sometimes she has to go away which means i look after my daughter. Shes currently away at the moment until the end of March and now has our daughter every other weekends but i'm still paying her child maintenance which is £300 a month voluntarily not through CSA

My ex doesn't receive any chld tax credits but as we both work full time my daughter goes to before and after school club which she pays about £150-£200 a month.

My question is can i stop paying her child maintenance and she pays me or pay her enough to cover the childcare costs?

This sort of thing has happened in the past, but not this long i've just carried on paying the child maintenance for example school holidays i took 3 weeks off to look after her in the summer and still payed my ex full maintenance.

Is it morally wrong for me to not pay her when i have my daughter?

Thank you

Fission

The short answer is that if your agreement is a purely voluntary one, you may do anything you like, including stopping the payment of child maintenance.

But if you do, you shouldn't be surprised if the mother takes umbrage at that and makes an application to the CSA/CMS for a child support calculation. The calculation would be 12% of your gross income (as stated on your last P60 or tax assessment), less a proportion of that amount depending on how many nights a week (on average, over the previous year) you have had your child stay overnight with you:

0 - 51 nights: no reduction
52 - 103 nights: 1/7th reduction
104 - 155 nights: 2/7 reduction.

Hope this helps.

F

PS: I haven't addressed the concept of morality because I don't care to dip my toe into such a muddy pool. Those are matters you have to decide for yourself.

chazzie83

Fission wrote: »

The short answer is that if your agreement is a purely voluntary one, you may do anything you like, including stopping the payment of child maintenance.

But if you do, you shouldn't be surprised if the mother takes umbrage at that and makes an application to the CSA/CMS for a child support calculation. The calculation would be 12% of your gross income (as stated on your last P60 or tax assessment), less a proportion of that amount depending on how many nights a week (on average, over the previous year) you have had your child stay overnight with you:

0 - 51 nights: no reduction
52 - 103 nights: 1/7th reduction
104 - 155 nights: 2/7 reduction.

Hope this helps.

F

PS: I haven't addressed the concept of morality because I don't care to dip my toe into such a muddy pool. Those are matters you have to decide for yourself.

Thank you for your help

Guest101

To be clear, if you have your child full time at the minute and for the next few months, you are the Primary carer and would owe nothing, you could now issue the same claim against your ex, and be paid child support.

chazzie83

Guest101 wrote: »

To be clear, if you have your child full time at the minute and for the next few months, you are the Primary carer and would owe nothing, you could now issue the same claim against your ex, and be paid child support.

Well i was gonna pay her enough money to cover the before / after school club costs which is about £200. My daughter has all three meals at school and has enough uniform to last.

duchy

Ae you currently paying the legal minimum to your ex or a different amount below the legal minimum ?

Can you calculate with any certainty how many nights over the current year the child will spend under each roof ?

Is this 2 month trip an exceptional one or are absences of this length likely to become regular ?

chazzie83

duchy wrote: »

Ae you currently paying the legal minimum to your ex or a different amount below the legal minimum ?

Can you calculate with any certainty how many nights over the current year the child will spend under each roof ?

Is this 2 month trip an exceptional one or are absences of this length likely to become regular ?

I pay above the legal amount, calculating the amount under each roof is hard its random dates for example i had my daughter for three weeks in October and three weeks during the summer holidays and the odd week throughout the year or night and took her on holiday over Christmas and had her for three weeks.

RAS

So tot up how many days you cared for your daughter (at home or on holiday) last calendar year.

chazzie83

RAS wrote: »

So tot up how many days you cared for your daughter (at home or on holiday) last calendar year.

It was about 141 days

WYSPECIAL

It's nights that count not days for CMS purposes. Assuming you earn less than £41600 pa then you would pay 12% of your gross salary but then divide by seven and multiply by five to adjust for the over nights.

If you have a private agreement which you can both afford and works for you think carefully before treading the CMS path.

chazzie83

WYSPECIAL wrote: »

It's nights that count not days for CMS purposes. Assuming you earn less than £41600 pa then you would pay 12% of your gross salary but then divide by seven and multiply by five to adjust for the over nights.

If you have a private agreement which you can both afford and works for you think carefully before treading the CMS path.

I wasn't going to go through CMS, was gonnn talk to her about it as i don't think its fair that i'm paying maintenance and looking after my daughter I don't mind paying the £200 to cover the before/after school club. If she needs anymore uniform when i've got her i don't mind paying it.