Main Carer Being Short Changed on Child Maintenance

MightyMum

I wanted to check if anyone else is having the same issue with calculations for child maintenance as I'm sure it's not fair.

So, my ex has our child every other weekend and every other week 1 mid-week night, i.e. 3 nights a fortnight. And then 4 weeks holiday a year. To me, the calculation should therefore be ((48 ÷ 2) * 3)+(4×7) = 100

But child maintenance calculate as (52*2)+(4*7)=132

This then puts him in a different bracket for support and so he pays less.

Apparently their systems can't calculate if it's not the same number of nights each week and can't work out how to not double count the days of the holidays!

But this means they're paying less maintenance- has anyone else experienced? I appealed it but was told I was wrong!

Woodstok2000

It seems its the total that is important, so have you tried telling them he has the child 1.92 days every week? Or if they cant cope with decimals, go with 2 nights per week.

tetrarch

There calculation is obviously nonsense - even if they can't cope with part days then it should be at the very worst:

(52*2)+(4*5) or (48*2)+(4*7), either of which = 124

132 is definitely wrong

(48*2.5)+(4*7) is the simplest way to express it

Regards

Tet

gmstah

Your instinct is right and the maths matters more than it looks, because your case sits right on a band boundary.

The bands are set in nights per year, not per week (Schedule 1 of the Child Support Act 1991: 52–103, 104–155, 156–174, 175+). So the honest way to count an every-other-weekend-plus-a-midweek pattern with four holiday weeks is to go through an actual twelve months, night by night. Do that and you land around 100–104, which is exactly the 103/104 line. Multiplying a weekly figure that your arrangement doesn't have is what got them to 132.

I spent over a year doing this for my own case and the thing I'd say is: phone calls don't fix counting disputes, a written year does. A dated diary of who had the child each night, kept as you go, plus anything independent (school, clubs) turns it from your number against their formula into something they can check. The decision makers' guidance says when parents' figures fall in different bands, both sides have to provide evidence.

If the mandatory reconsideration has already been refused, the next step is an appeal to the First-tier Tribunal, usually within a month of the MR letter. Tribunals look at the real pattern, not the system's rounding.

General info, not legal advice. And to be fair to everyone reading, this rule cuts the same way whichever parent is counting.

Jon — built a 200+ file Reg 50 evidence bundle as a parent, now building Evincio.