CMS help please. Main carer incapacitated & my Daughter wants to live with me?

chinesedeli

Hi there, I am really hoping that someone might be able to help me please as I just really need some advice as I am not sure what to do. Thankyou.
My daughter is 16 & her Mum who is the main carer was put on life support 4 weeks ago due to Covid. My Daughter has been staying with her stepfather but is desperate to come and live with me and I would love this also. I am not sure what to do because I am trying to be sensitive to my ex partners family but I also feel that it is best for my Daughter to stay with me. Through the CMS I pay £650 a month as the paying parent. I do not have any hope that the CMS will be helpful during this time but I thought I would try and ask anyone on here if you know what will happen or what I should do please? If my Daughter stays with me will the CMS stop taking my money out for the Stepdad to use or will they just not do anything and keep taking the money out even though my Daughter will be living with me? Obviously her Mother is completely unconscious and is likely to be for a very long time and also may not survive. Thankyou for all of your help and advise x

theoretica

https://childmaintenanceservice.direct.gov.uk/onlinerevive/public/covid19-faq-nrp

Shared care

If your shared care arrangements have changed temporarily due to coronavirus we will not be able to make any changes to the amount of child maintenance you pay or receive. This is because this change in care arrangement is temporary.

If this change in care arrangements continues into a longer-term arrangement, please tell us as soon as you can. You can do this by registering or logging into your self-service account.

Mojisola

theoretica said:

https://childmaintenanceservice.direct.gov.uk/onlinerevive/public/covid19-faq-nrp

Shared care

If your shared care arrangements have changed temporarily due to coronavirus we will not be able to make any changes to the amount of child maintenance you pay or receive. This is because this change in care arrangement is temporary.

If this change in care arrangements continues into a longer-term arrangement, please tell us as soon as you can. You can do this by registering or logging into your self-service account.

If the main carer is on life support then, at best, the move to her father's house will be longterm, if not permanent.

chinesedeli

See this is what I am worrying about because I don't think that the CMS are going to be helpful to me and if it is just going to be pointless contacting them. I would hate to also pay out this money when I would need to use this to support my daughter 

chinesedeli

I am so anxious because I don't know what to do. My daughter doesn't share the same surname as me, I don't have access to her passport or birth certificate even. How would I even get child health benefit people and CMS to even believe me

tacpot12

I tend to agree that the CMS is not going to help you in the short-term. However, if the worst happens and her mother dies, your daughter can decide if she wans to live with you. At the date her mother dies, your obligation to pay child maintenance to the mother would end. The child's mother's claim for child benefit would also end, and you would be able to claim child benefit for your daughter. I expect that this, combined with your daughter's birth certificate which I expect you could get, would be the sufficient for the CMS to stop the maintenance obligation to the mother. 

Of course, your daughter's step father may offer her a home as well. If you all agreed, it would be possible for him to become her guardian, receive child benefit and also receive child maintenance from you.

All you can do in the short term is continue to pay to the mother, and to explain to your daughter that while she is welcome to live with you, you are not going to be well off because she is going to cost you money and you still have to pay her mother. Clearly she is going to be very distressed about her mother and will need support from both you and her step-father, and her friends. You should try to put her first at this difficult time.

tacpot12

Getting the Child Benefit office to accept you are your daughter's father might be difficult, but you don't have that problem yet, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. If you do need to prove this, your daughter may have access to her birth certificate, and there may be other ways that the Child Benefit office would accept such as court papers, or DNA testing. 

The issue with the CMS is simpler. If someone else wants you to pay Child Maintenance to them so they can look after your daughter, they have to be her guardian which is a formal process that your daughter would have a lot of input to. 

ZaSa1418

As she is 16 and wants to stay with you go and pick her up, it is as simple as that. 
You can order a copy of her birth certificate online however you don't need to be a parent to claim child benefit. 

sheramber

If her mother is already claiming child benefit she must relinquish her claim before anybody else can claim. At present she is unable to do that.
The OP is happy to have his daughter living with him but  concerned he will still be required to pay child support to the mother   until CMS change the order.

ZaSa1418

The mother doesn't have to relinquish the claim at all, the OP could open a claim himself and then the CB would be frozen while they investigate where the child lives which should also freeze the maintenance.