Child Maintenance with Equal Shared care - reimbursement of payments

stoppeopleabusingthesystems

Can my partner be reimbursed for Child Maintenance he should never have paid?

My partner has been paying Child Maintenance through the CMS but he has a court document stating that both parents have equal shared care. 

From the Government website:

Child maintenance covers how your child’s living costs will be paid when one of the parents does not live with the child.

Q: What happens if the day-to-day care of a child is equal between a paying parent and a receiving parent?

A: In this situation, the paying parent does not have to pay any child maintenance for that child.

Child maintenance is a regular financial payment that helps cover a child's everyday living costs when parents are separated. The parent who receives child maintenance is known as the "parent with care", and the parent who pays is known as the "non-resident parent". 

Neither parent is listed as the "primary carer" or "parent with care". 

Neither parent is listed as the "non-resident parent". 

Therefore no child maintenance is required. 

So why has my partner been paying? How has this been possible? Or allowed?

Why was he ever required to pay this?

The original arrangement was always equal shared care, so it should never have been applied for as she was entitled to nothing. The ex then tried to keep it the "right side of" unequal knowing how to play the system - said they never agreed to the 50/50 equal shared care split, even though it was documented, and unilaterally made decisions to reduce Father's number of overnights, given the bandings:

"We then take shared care into account, based on the number of nights of shared care for each child. Depending on the number of nights, we reduce the amount of child maintenance for each child"

However, he has still been paying, even after receiving the most recent agreement stating equal shared care over a year ago. It seems very wrong how this has been allowed to happen, especially given that he already paid for everything during their relationship, and she had an affair which led to their divorce. 

She also had the child benefit paid into her account, which he saw none of, and received legal aid for the court hearings, whilst he was made to pay thousands.

How can he go about getting this money back due to the errors made?

tacpot12

I don't think he can. She has played the system and he didn't object at the time. I don't think there is any chance of getting this reversed. For a start, she has spent the money, either on caring for the child, or on beer and fags. He can object now, and might be able to get a change made going forward. 

The best thing to do is for you and he to recognise that he contributed financially to upkeep of his child, whichis what all parents should do. The money is gone and spent, and caring about this too much is likely to send you mad.