advice pls re next action

gimondi

Hi All,

I am enquiring on behalf of a friend re her child maintenancefor her three daughters.
In disquieting circumstances in 1993 she decided that she had to leave for her own safety and well being with her three daughters aged 7,5 and 2. She left the marital home with nothing.
She subsequently received one third of the equity of the marital home, more than two years later, because,her ex husband said, that’s all he could afford at that time; she had contributed all of the deposit and paid the mortgage from her own salary on their first property and the mortgage for their second property for four years until their children arrived.
She received no maintenance for 4 years until finally receiving £250 per month for all three daughters.
She re-married in 2003 and has two young sons from this marriage. Her current husband pays maintenance for 1 child from his previous marriage.
Her children are now aged 19,17 and 14 and are all still in full-time education. Her ex has recently reduced his payments to £200 per month. He sees his children for less than 52 days of the year and he has re-married and has one young child and is expecting another.
At the time of the separation the mother was traumatised by the actions of her former husband and felt unable to seek help for a fair settlement.
Advice please. Although a voluntary agreement the former husband has admitted in the past that he has got off lightly. What course of action is open for the mother to claim:

1. satisfactory current payments and
2. seek compensation for inadequate past payments.

I believe it is possible for her to go to the CSA. Is this the best course of action or knowing they would take action, for her to use this as a stick to encourage her ex to come to a sensible arrangement regards points 1, 2 or both?

thx in anticipation of any help,

kelloggs36

She cannot claim for past payments - she should have done this at the time. However if there is no current CSA claim open she could make a claim which would be based on the current system. THis would be for 2 children initially as the eldest is now too old to be considered by the CSA. It would be 20% of her ex's net income, but as he already has 1 child in his household, this would first be reduced by 15% and she would get 20% of the rest, so in effect she would get 20% of 85% of his net income. Then when the 17 year old either leaves full-time education or reaches their 19th birthday (whichever is sooner, and university does NOT count as it has to be full-time non-advanced education) the amount will reduce to 15% of his net income, but as the new baby will be born, this will reduce his assessment further as instead of reducing his income by 15% first before calculating maintnenace, it would be reduced by 20%, so she would get 15% of 80% of his net income.

As I said, there is no way that she can seek compensation for the past.