What to do when divorced parents can't agree on sharing child-related universal credit?

ColonelCabbage

I assume the legal/court order stage starts with speaking to a sollicitor but I'm asking here about the stage before that, mediation. How does it work? Does the government provide it? Is it free?

Jyana

Mediation is something you, or both of you, pay for in hopes that you do not have to go to court. It tends to be looked on as being favourable if you have honestly tried to come to an agreement through doing so if communication does break down and you then do end up having to take things further instead. You can find plenty of info about it online if you give a Google, but this link will give you some of the basics. 

https://helpwithchildarrangements.service.justice.gov.uk/professional-mediation-other-parent

If mediation doesn't work, then it will depend on which benefits in total you are disputing. Child Benefit you can put in a claim yourself and let HMRC decide who it should be paid to. They tend to go take the following kind of things in mind when working out who the recipient should be:

Where the child is living most of the time

Which address is used for school/doctor/etc
Who buys the majority of clothes/toys/essential items

They do take into consideration that "one parent may be less able to contribute financially than the other." And also "Consideration may also be given to the wider financial impact of awarding Child Benefit, in particular, entitlement to the other social security benefits."

For UC, I have very little working knowledge of I'm afraid, not sure if you would need to make a claim as with CB or go to court. I sure someone else will know more though.

ColonelCabbage

Thank you.

Yes I could make a claim and including my child in it but that wouldn't solve the sharing problem.

One question, does the mediator look into the income of each parent?

tacpot12

There is no legal basis for sharing the Child Element of Universal Credit. Only one parent can receive the Child Element, and you both have to decide who that is. If your ex won't agree to you being named and they already receive it, mediation might help to persuade them to agree to ask the DWP to change the parent that receives the Child Element. The mediator doesn't look at anything. Rather the mediator helps each party explain their point of view to the other party, and helps the parties to find what agreement can be found. The mediator isn't a judge, their work is mainly to help the parties listen to each other properly and take a proper amount of time to consider what is best for their child.  

If you want your child maintenance payments to take into account that you are not receiving the Child Element, you need to know that the Child Maintenance Service Calculator takes the fact you receive Universal Credit into account, so when discussing the fairness of any financial payments, you should use the CMS Calculator figures as the basis for discussion. 

I know from my own divorce that it always leaves both adults worse off, and the child doubly so. I was lucky and was able to agree with my ex-wife that we would both not have enough to live on by the same degree, e.g. we would both be £100 a month short of what we actually needed to live, but we would make this work some how. The mediator will help you find if there is some middle ground that you can negotiate on to arrive at a settlement you are both happy with. If you cannot find a solution you are happy with, a court will impose a solution that one of you is going to be unhappy about.