advice needed on cross border child maintenance....

originalbob

Hi-First post on this forum,so please be gentle with me.
Ok, does anybody have any experience in this area that they can provide any advice on?Situation is as follows:
I'm the NRP and separated from my ex wife in Feb 2004 and divorce went thru early 2005.Ex wife moved to the isle of Man following sale of family home/business (of which she got lion's share of proceeds) to live with new partner-apparently he works for one of the financial institutions there and is doing very nicely thank you.Was paying maintenance at CSA rates until the ex moved to the Isle of Man in June 2005, at which point CSA stopped collecting maintenance from me.At this point she promptly took out court order via IOM courts for maintenance, collection of which started in about Oct 2005.Have been paying this steadily by standing order since then without a hitch, and have been providing small additional sums to help cover costs of kids' school trips outside of the maintenance order.Am not sure what the ex is doing to support the kids financially, or whether she is collecting benefits on the island, but in May this year was contacted by her asking about an increase in maintenance.Replied with an offer shortly thereafter, and got no response.About a month later, she contacted me saying that she is intending to remarry in Aug 2008, but until today have had no reply to my offer.
Today, some 4 months later, have just had an email saying that my offer was not acceptable, and that she will be contacting her legal advisor to seek a more suitable (to her) increase via IOM courts.My situation is that I'm on low wages, having to rent a flat,and can't afford to hire legal help because I earn slightly too much to qualify for legal aid.Because of my post divorce financial situation I genuinely cannot afford any increase in maintenance-email ex sent me comes a couple of weeks after they've just returned from2 weeks in the south of france, and I have'nt had a holiday in 3 years.
Does anybody have any idea as to the best way to proceed?
thanks for reading this

kelloggs36

Draw up a list of all your expenses for living and your income and what you pay to her. You could try and base it on CSA amounts as a starting point. If you are currently paying more, whilst they can't collect from you, you could argue in Court that you are being totally reasonable in your offer. I doubt you will have a problem to be honest.

originalbob

Thanks for that kellogs.Will wait and see what happens when the paperwork arrives from her solicitor.

originalbob

Ok,some 2 weeks down the line since my original post have not heard anything either from the ex or her solicitors.Now the question comes to mind that should this come to anything, what information could I legitimately request from my ex and/or her solicitors to confirm that she is doing everything that she should/could be doing to support the kids?

kelloggs36

What do you mean exactly?

originalbob

Thanks for the reply.Sort of thing that i was thinking about trying to find out is establishing whether the ex is in fact working -if so, whether full/part time, or if she's on benefits, whether she's claiming everything that she could be entitled to.And, to be honest, I'd also like some explanation as to why she's seeking more maintenance.Can I in fact ask these sorts of questions?

kelloggs36

If she is on benefits then whatever the increase you pay will be deducted, so there is no point as she won't gain a single penny of it. It would appear that she is working. She could be claiming tax credits or have a high enough income not to need them. You can only ask, but there are no guarantees that it will be considered relevant. If it were CSA (which I appreciate it isn't) then the actual amount is totally irrelevant compared to the income of the PWC as it is based purely on a flat rate of the NRP earnings and so if you suddenly landed a very high paying job, then your contribution would rocket. The opposite would apply if you lost your income (but not if you deliberately give up the work to avoid CSA but that's another story). It is virtually impossible to quantify the amount of money needed to bring up children as every household's values will be different in some way or another - this is the problem after break ups as often there is no negotiation between the parents as to how they want the children to be brought up between them - the child then gets into the situation where they have 2 different families - values will vary between them. There would need to be some common ground but after splits, this is often extremely difficult.