Changes in child maintenance - BUT have a consent order

Rubik · 24 October 2018 at 8:25AM

ThePants999 wrote: »

But badmemory is correct nonetheless, right? Clearly it's plain silly to make any concessions in other areas in return for reduced child maintenance, since the reduced child maintenance can evaporate a year later but the concessions you made in return are permanent. If the OP was actually following professional advice to do that then it was frankly negligent!

No, they aren't correct.

I agree, it is fool hardy to attempt to offset a share of certain assets in return for reduced CM payments - it's fine if that works and both parents can stick to the agreement without either one enduring some form of hardship which impacts on the children, but if one parent decides to approach the CMS after a period of time (and in this case, it's not unreasonable to request an increase in CM after FIVE years), then the other parent has to pay the statutory amount. - regardless of what other financial arrangements were set out in the CO.

Who knows what advice the OP acted on, or what the state of the relationship between him and his ex was then and is now. I suspect there is much more that is relevant that he isn't divulging.

jjj1980 · 3 November 2018 at 11:25AM

I came across this issue during my divorce. I was told by my solicitor that they no longer dealt with child support via Consent/Financial Orders as once 12 months had passed, either parent could approach CSA, as it was then and there would then need to be a further court application to cancel the child support part of the CO. During the crossover, both amounts would have been payable. I had to go to CSA anyway as my ex had been abusive so i wanted them to deal with him.

I also came across this issue from a work perspective more recently in a Mortgage Admin role when a client showed a CO agreement to pay £350pm in child support based on agreeing not to go after his ex’s pensions etc. However, due to his salary, the CMS calculation would have been over £1k per month. This made a difference in whether he would have been able to maintain the mortgage he was wanting should the ex go for a CMS application. It took me a full day and providing lots of documents to convince the Mortgage Advisor as he couldn’t believe a court order could be overridden by CMS.

Changes in child maintenance - BUT have a consent order

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