REMO child maintenance from France - can they enforce it? 22 April 2022 at 9:28PM in Child support 2 replies 167 views

vanillamango12

I’m going through the REMO process to get maintenance from my daughters dad who earns €7000 a month.

Daughter is 1, she’s his first and only child currently. 

I asked for £50 a week, he refused. He says he is not her father, he has never met her. I’ve been asking him to take a dna test from before I’d even given birth (I will happily pay for this but he’s refusing to take one) 

Can they force a DNA test? I’m not hopeful as he isn’t on the birth certificate, we were never living together or married. Have some photos together that’s about it. Will they still force him to take one? Or accept refusal of a test as acknowledging paternity? 

MalMonroe

Hi,

I'm so sorry to hear this. Thank goodness your daughter is too young to understand what is happening, as yet, my heart goes out to you both. 

It seems that your daughter's dad thinks that because he lives in France he can just forget his responsibilities. I do hope that you will be able to get some maintenance from him. If he thinks he isn't the father, then what's stopping him from having a DNA test to prove it?

Unfortunately, I don't think that a court will accept refusal to take a DNA test as an acknowledgement of paternity, in any country. 

But I'm assuming that you are chasing this through your nearest Maintenance Enforcement Business Centre (MEBC).

In which case you need to contact them and they will send you forms to complete. As per the information in the following link -

https://www.gov.uk/child-maintenance-if-one-parent-lives-abroad/other-partner-lives-abroad

[Please note that it says "The process may change from 1 January 2021" but the MEBC should be able to advise you of what to do next.]

I wish you all the very best. x

tightauldgit

MalMonroe said:

Hi,

I'm so sorry to hear this. Thank goodness your daughter is too young to understand what is happening, as yet, my heart goes out to you both. 

It seems that your daughter's dad thinks that because he lives in France he can just forget his responsibilities. I do hope that you will be able to get some maintenance from him. If he thinks he isn't the father, then what's stopping him from having a DNA test to prove it?

Unfortunately, I don't think that a court will accept refusal to take a DNA test as an acknowledgement of paternity, in any country. 

But I'm assuming that you are chasing this through your nearest Maintenance Enforcement Business Centre (MEBC).

In which case you need to contact them and they will send you forms to complete. As per the information in the following link -

https://www.gov.uk/child-maintenance-if-one-parent-lives-abroad/other-partner-lives-abroad

[Please note that it says "The process may change from 1 January 2021" but the MEBC should be able to advise you of what to do next.]

I wish you all the very best. x

I did reply to the OP yesterday but it seems to have disappeared. Refusal to take a paternity test can be sufficient for the CMS to assume parentage so I would think if the OP is persistent with it and follows the process through they have a good chance of getting the result they want. It may take a while but any outstanding maintenance would be backdated. Running away and refusing to admit responsibility isn't a get out of jail free card but I do think the OP needs to get some proper legal advice and start pursuing this through the courts.