Advice on child maintenance payment to ex-wife

theoretica

Chris_P wrote: »

Thanks Guy. Yes i will be having them overnight 7 days for every other week. And the £650 is in addition to the £450 (i forgot about child 1's wrap around school care). All food clothes trips etc will be split 50/50.

The family home is a big detached 4/5 house. She can only just afford to keep the mortgage based on me paying £650pm.

If you are considering paying so much over the legal minimum to allow her to remain in the house, would it be possible to negotiate that directly - perhaps so you pay the mortgage but own an increasing proportion of the house? You would also need to account for household maintenance.

Chris_P_2

Update guys. She gets £300 pm in benefits plus £1500 net pm from work. My net income is £3100pm. We agreed I would pay £350pm and also pay nursery fees and school wrap around (as well as have them 7 nights a week). She now wants an extra £50 on top. It my not seem much but i just dont feel comfortable with it. I did agree to it but that was whe she was stressing me on the phone. I then said I would pay an extra £30pm until our youngest finishes nursery.

My concern is that although capital value wise we are 50/50, her asset (the matrimonial house) is a lot nicer and in will increase in value a lot more than our rental which I am keeping. We are due to complete on removing each other of the respective mortgages this week.

Because its a commitment for upto 18yrs, i dont like the idea of it. Plus she spends £40pm for a cleaner (she lives a lone with 2 kids every other week). So in my mind this extra £50pm is just paying for her cleaner.

ladymarmalade

I don't have children yet but I do have quite strong opinions on this (depending on the circumstances).

From your original post, my immediate thought was that you were paying way too much. Now from you recent post I can see that you are losing the matrimonial home and she also has a cleaner! I am sorry but if she can afford a cleaner, she needs no extra cash from you - I woul refuse this personally. As you say she will have a week without children every fortnight so she should not need a cleaner!!!

mgdavid

She is taking the mick, and you are close to falling for it.
The CSA calculator is there for a reason - use it. Remember you are responsible only to pay for the children, not to support her in the lifestyle she would like to continue (house, cleaner, car, etc etc)

Mojisola

As you have 50/50 care, you should each claim child benefit for one child.

Why is she getting all the benefits relating to the children plus maintenance from you?

iammumtoone

Even with 50/50 care you do need to pay her something as you earn much more.

Work out by the calculator what she should be paying you (on her wage not including benefits)and what you should be paying her. Then pay her the difference in the two. You should also be splitting childcare 50/50 not 100% from your wage, she will get top up benefits to help with her share.

Why does she have the better house if you have 50/50 care (I could understand it if the children were with her more of the time but they aren't). I am sorry but if she can't afford the house on what she is entitled to then that's not your problem she should have opted to live in your cheaper one.

I say all this as a PWC so I am not biased I would never expect as much as the OPs ex is getting, some of us are fair and reasonable. Its story's like this that give us a bad name.

TBagpuss

So - you have £3,100 - £350 - £450 = £2,300
She has £1,500 + £300 + £350 = £2,150

It's difficult to comment about whether that is reasonable over all given that we don't know the figures for the capital split. However, it doesn't seem unreasonable.

It may be worth looking into whether there are ways to be more efficient - for instance, if she is eligible to claim help with the nursery costs then it might be possible for you to give her a bit more in maintenance instead of paying nursery fees, so she would be better off and you would be no worse off

iammumtoone

TBagpuss wrote: »

So - you have £3,100 - £350 - £450 = £2,300
She has £1,500 + £300 + £350 = £2,150

It's difficult to comment about whether that is reasonable over all given that we don't know the figures for the capital split. However, it doesn't seem unreasonable.

It may be worth looking into whether there are ways to be more efficient - for instance, if she is eligible to claim help with the nursery costs then it might be possible for you to give her a bit more in maintenance instead of paying nursery fees, so she would be better off and you would be no worse off

Regardless of the current/potential equity in the houses (which the ex has more) why should they both have roughly the same amount?

The OP earns 2 times more than the ex. this means a job that is broadly speaking 2 times more demanding/2 times mores stressful and I guess a lot longer hours. I would say that makes them much worse off than the ex if they are expected to end up with the same monetary amount each month. If the ex wants more money she should get a better paid job with the extra stress/hours that comes with it like the OP. Then the wages would be the same and no need for anyone to pay CM just the 50/50 shared childcare. Fair all-round.

Sambella

£300 in CTC. £350 from OP, £149 in child benefit for two kids. £799 per month. (+Childcare paid by OP)

It's unlikely she needs to touch ANY of her own earnings for child expenses.

Let's hope she doesn't now want half of any costs for clothes, school trips etc cos her half ain't coming from 'her' money.

EmeraldEye

I hate situations like this! As a woman I often feel that the man really ends up with a very raw financial deal.

So your ex is living in the marital home, she works with a take home pay of £1500 a month and she is receiving benefits in the form of child benefit/child tax credit to the tune of roughly £450 per month; You give her £350 each month by way of maintenance and on top of this you pay the nursery/childcare fees.

To add to all of that you share custody of the children with them spending 50% of their time with you and 50% with their mum - She gets to live in what sounds like a spacious house and has a cleaner at her disposal and now she's asking that you give her an additional £50 a month on top of what she already receives, hmmm!

Yeah she's absolutely and completely taking you for a ride and you would be a fool if you agreed to increase your payments.

In actual fact I don't understand why she's getting £350 a month from you when she actually only has the children for two weeks out of every four. It may be the legal requirerment (excuse my ignorance on the matter) but I think it's far too much especially when you are also paying the nursery/childcare bill.

It's difficult I'm sure but whilst you are of course responsible for paying towards the children's needs, you most certainly are not responsible to pay for her lifestyle.

As for the house, hmmm so she will have the "nice" house and your name will be removed from the mortgage and you will have the "lesser" house and her name will be removed from the mortgage; Is it not possible for both to be sold and profits divided as you are both 50/50 taking a hands on role raising the children?

You said earlier that she can't afford the mortgage without your contrtibution so why is she hanging onto it? I'd be getting it sold!

Anyway, good luck but a word of friendly advice, don't let her guilt trip/manipulate/stress you into paying for things that you really shouldn't be paying for!