Changes in children’s living arrangements

Dollymix12

My friend currently pays support for his 2 children (12 & 17) who both live with their mother. The eldest will be attending full time college in September and has decided to move in with his dad as it will be easier to get to college from. How will this change his support payments to his ex as I would have thought if they both have main responsibility for one child each that neither will need to make any payments to the other (both earn approx the same salary’s) but we can’t find any information about it

tacpot12

The parents can do two separate calculations, one for each child. This will determine the amount that A pays to B (for the first child) and that B pays to A (for the second child). If the parents agree, then one can pay the difference to the other. The difference could be quite small if the parents earnings are similar, but the number of nights that each child spends at the other parents could skew the amounts slightly. However your friend should find that while he is giving a lot less to the other parent, his own living costs will increase substantially - 17 years olds can consume massive quantities of food and use seemingly endless supplies of hot water!  

Dollymix12

tacpot12 said:

The parents can do two separate calculations, one for each child. This will determine the amount that A pays to B (for the first child) and that B pays to A (for the second child). If the parents agree, then one can pay the difference to the other. The difference could be quite small if the parents earnings are similar, but the number of nights that each child spends at the other parents could skew the amounts slightly. However your friend should find that while he is giving a lot less to the other parent, his own living costs will increase substantially - 17 years olds can consume massive quantities of food and use seemingly endless supplies of hot water!  

The 17 year old is already spending weeks with him and he’s still paying fully for both, the 12 year old has been staying full school holiday weeks and intends to spend the full 6 weeks in summer too. He hasn’t been able to have his claim reassessed yet, I did tell him he needed to make sure he was noting how many days/nights they were staying but he’s not very good at recording these things and is probably paying more than is required currently. I would of thought each of them will be able to claim child benefit for the child that’s living with him too? 

He seems to be the only one buying clothes for either of them and you know how expensive it is to buy teenagers clothes . His ex won’t engage with any coms with him so I assume she won’t agree to any arrangement unless forced to he’s very happy to pay whatever is required of him to and definitely doesn’t skimp on spending on them so it’s not really about paying, but more about paying what he needs to so he can spend on them for other things they may need.

ZaSa1418

Dollymix12 said:

My friend currently pays support for his 2 children (12 & 17) who both live with their mother. The eldest will be attending full time college in September and has decided to move in with his dad as it will be easier to get to college from. How will this change his support payments to his ex as I would have thought if they both have main responsibility for one child each that neither will need to make any payments to the other (both earn approx the same salary’s) but we can’t find any information about it

Once the child moves in he needs to make sure he claims the child benefit for the older child, he needs to also make sure his address is the address at college for proof (and drs, dentist etc (incase the ex claims child hasnt moved out to the CB office) )
Does he pay maintenance through the CMS? If so he needs to tell them of the change in circumstances and he should open a case for himself for older child. Chances are they should even themselves out if they earn the same roughly.