Child Maintenance for children 3x with ex wife 2x with ex gf

silvercar

HoneyNutLoop wrote: »

It is capped at 19% for all children, not per partner.

While the 2 children lived with him, he would have benefitted from a 16% reduction to his income for children in his household, and paid 19% of the remaining income for the 3 children he had to pay maintenance for.

He now has no children in his household, so there is no reduction to his income. He will now pay 19% of his full income split between the 5 children, rather than 19% of 86% of his income, split between 3 children.

So before he was losing 16.34% of his income and had to finance a household with 2 extra children, now he loses 19% but has extra housing/ utility/ living costs.

Family one were gaining 19% of his income but now have to make do with only 11.4%. That is a big drop for them, when nothing materially has changed.

HoneyNutLoop

It basically means there's no financial implication for a paying parent if they have more than 3 children. They can't be made to pay any more 19% of their gross income (unless they owe arrears). They could have 19 children, and as each child is added the existing ones get less money.

So, for this chap, if he was earning £500 a week gross, he would have been paying £95 a week. When child number 4 was added, this would have gone down to £84.55 a week. It goes down because child number 4 is in his household so the income taken into account for maintenance is reduced by 11%. When child number 5 was added, it would go down to £81.70 a week.

When they split, it goes back to £95 as none of the children are with him. Mother 1 gets £57 for 3 of the children. Mother 2 gets £38 for 2 of them.

FreddieFrugal

I've looked into this for ages now on different websites and forums.

I haven't been able to find a definitive, recent answer for your specific circumstances.

I have found forums discussing paying maintenance to two ex partners but that was only one child each - it was also based on the older system. So really you need to contact them. Hope you post the answer.

I can understand why it might be capped at 3 children or more - some costs are fixed and don't rise per child - with 3 children or more the mother will almost certainly be receiving a lot of financial support through tax credits etc.

But I don't think it's right to apply the same principle when the children are split between two households. It doesn't seem fair.

silvercar

HoneyNutLoop wrote: »

It basically means there's no financial implication for a paying parent if they have more than 3 children. They can't be made to pay any more 19% of their gross income (unless they owe arrears). They could have 19 children, and as each child is added the existing ones get less money.

So, for this chap, if he was earning £500 a week gross, he would have been paying £95 a week. When child number 4 was added, this would have gone down to £84.55 a week. It goes down because child number 4 is in his household so the income taken into account for maintenance is reduced by 11%. When child number 5 was added, it would go down to £81.70 a week.

When they split, it goes back to £95 as none of the children are with him. Mother 1 gets £57 for 3 of the children. Mother 2 gets £38 for 2 of them.

I agree.

£81.70 dropping to £57 could be a big drop, depending on the income of mother 1's household.

silvercar

FreddieFrugal wrote: »

I've looked into this for ages now on different websites and forums.

I haven't been able to find a definitive, recent answer for your specific circumstances.

I have found forums discussing paying maintenance to two ex partners but that was only one child each - it was also based on the older system. So really you need to contact them. Hope you post the answer.

I can understand why it might be capped at 3 children or more - some costs are fixed and don't rise per child - with 3 children or more the mother will almost certainly be receiving a lot of financial support through tax credits etc.

But I don't think it's right to apply the same principle when the children are split between two households. It doesn't seem fair.

It does seem strange, but then if there was no percentage cap and the father went on to have more children and say another 2 mothers to support, would it be fair if that rate of 19% or 16% or whatever went to each household? 4 x 19= 76% which clearly wouldn't leave the father enough to live.

FreddieFrugal

silvercar wrote: »

It does seem strange, but then if there was no percentage cap and the father went on to have more children and say another 2 mothers to support, would it be fair if that rate of 19% or 16% or whatever went to each household? 4 x 19= 76% which clearly wouldn't leave the father enough to live.

Well they've got to take some responsibility somewhere! He should have thought about the implications beforehand.

This isn't aimed at the OP's situation.

But if someone fathered 12 children or over between 4 different mothers - none of whom he lived with - he's clearly been incredibly stupid. I don't think having the same 19% as someone with three children from one ex partner seems very fair on the children or the ex partners.

Guest101

FreddieFrugal wrote: »

Well they've got to take some responsibility somewhere! He should have thought about the implications beforehand.

This isn't aimed at the OP's situation.

But if someone fathered 12 children or over between 4 different mothers - none of whom he lived with - he's clearly been incredibly stupid. I don't think having the same 19% as someone with three children from one ex partner seems very fair on the children or the ex partners.

But the mums aren't stupid for having children with someone like that?


Th eex partners are nothing to do with it, this is money purely for the chidlren

HoneyNutLoop

Fair and legal are not always the same thing.

kimplus8

The poor guy is trying to do his best, better than my ex's that do everything they can to avoid paying. Well done OP for wanted to get it sorted and for taking responsibility.

duchy

I'm not sure wanting to pay the minimum he is legally obliged to is entirely fair . The mother of family 1 is basically getting less money simply because he has another failed relationship. Whatever way you look at it that family loses out. Fair would be topping up so she didn't get any less money as the children from family 1 still have the same financial need they had when he was with his girlfriend.