C100 application and Access

Hi All,

Its my first post on here but I was wondering if someone could please advise on my situation?

My child is nearly 3. I have had an on going battle with my ex partner since our separation for access. With a lot of begging I managed to get access upto 5 nights in a fornight which has been in force since early January. Every Wednesday night and alternate Friday to Monday mornings.

However I have been through the process and managed to get an application to court submitted on the 19th of Feb only to have my access reduced to 2 days a fortnight by my ex the day after submitting my C100.

Now form is submitted I can’t ask for an urgent hearing to restore contact. Am I likely to at least get back what access I had or more when I finally get to court? There are no safeguarding issue but you never know what my ex may bring up.

Thanks in advance!

Raydad said:

Am I likely to at least get back what access I had or more when I finally get to court?

Click to expand...

Was reduction from 5/14 to 2/14 a result of your ex finding out about the C100 application? If not, how did it come about?

5/14 was in place for about 6 weeks. I am not sure if that would be seen as a well established arrangement. The default arrangement for 'live with' your ex and 'spend time with' you is every other weekend, one week night per week, and half the holidays. So 4/14 with some extra holiday time would not be a bad result.

The court process is lengthy, expensive, and highly prone to involve allegations of abuse being hurled at you. Having said that, there are success stories. You may get a 'live with both' parents order. This is usually between 5 and 7 nights out of 14 and it gives a more equal footing.

Factors that matter include: your level of involvement thus far; proximity to your ex's address; your criminal record, if you have one; former involvement of social services with the family; drug and alcohol use; how much money you can throw at it, £10k would be a good start; and, perhaps most importantly, whether or not your ex is going to play dirty. If she is willing to play dirty, there will be no shortage of encouragement and support available to her. Including a pot of money from Legal Aid to help her along.

Sorry if what I've written sound like doom and gloom. I want to get across that court is not a walk in the park. If I had known this I would have handled early days following separation very differently. Naively, I believed court would put things straight if my ex was unreasonable and I overplayed my position as a result.

Resolute said:

Was reduction from 5/14 to 2/14 a result of your ex finding out about the C100 application? If not, how did it come about?

5/14 was in place for about 6 weeks. I am not sure if that would be seen as a well established arrangement. The default arrangement for 'live with' your ex and 'spend time with' you is every other weekend, one week night per week, and half the holidays. So 4/14 with some extra holiday time would not be a bad result.

The court process is lengthy, expensive, and highly prone to involve allegations of abuse being hurled at you. Having said that, there are success stories. You may get a 'live with both' parents order. This is usually between 5 and 7 nights out of 14 and it gives a more equal footing.

Factors that matter include: your level of involvement thus far; proximity to your ex's address; your criminal record, if you have one; former involvement of social services with the family; drug and alcohol use; how much money you can throw at it, £10k would be a good start; and, perhaps most importantly, whether or not your ex is going to play dirty. If she is willing to play dirty, there will be no shortage of encouragement and support available to her. Including a pot of money from Legal Aid to help her along.

Sorry if what I've written sound like doom and gloom. I want to get across that court is not a walk in the park. If I had known this I would have handled early days following separation very differently. Naively, I believed court would put things straight if my ex was unreasonable and I overplayed my position as a result.

Click to expand...

The change in arrangement came from an overreaction on her side after asking for more money ontop of CMS payments. I said I would take a look and that was the response.

I was heavily involved in the day to day raising of my child when we were together and we don’t live far apart. Pick up and dropped off at nursey. Attended medical appointments. The list goes on.

I have no criminal records or involvement with social services. She has however already tried making several allegations about abuse which is just nonsense.

I have tried mediation and that has failed. So I am now where I am.

You should be able to get the 5/14 back. Why did you apply to court if you already had 5/14? Yes she will get more money if you only have 2 nights instead of 5! I suggest you try and reach some amicable arrangements over Child Maintenance, for a family based arrangement. You could agree an amount based on no nights, even if you have 5 nights a fortnight. Or you could propose an amount based on 5 nights a fortnight but offer to share costs of school uniform and school trips or something.

Ash said:

You should be able to get the 5/14 back. Why did you apply to court if you already had 5/14? Yes she will get more money if you only have 2 nights instead of 5! I suggest you try and reach some amicable arrangements over Child Maintenance, for a family based arrangement. You could agree an amount based on no nights, even if you have 5 nights a fortnight. Or you could propose an amount based on 5 nights a fortnight but offer to share costs of school uniform and school trips or something.

Click to expand...

The main reason being I am at her beckon call and she is dictating access along with other terms around my family not being allowed to spend time with her. I needed to stop the dictating and believe my daughter is entitled to spend equal time with us both. There is also nothing stopping her changing her mind anytime she wants.
She gets maintenance through the CSA. I have offered to pay extras on top of child maintenance for clothes, extracurricular activities etc and have been doing. She wants me to pay half the childcare costs on top of the CMS payments for days I don’t even have my child. I don’t think any amount will ever be enough. Our child will want for nothing and am more than prepared to pay my way for her.

Ok so I see what you mean. So what have you asked for in your application? For the five nights a fortnight to be formalised and recitals to ensure stability for your child with both families?

I take it your kids are under school age. Is your ex claiming the free childcare allowance?

Ash said:

Ok so I see what you mean. So what have you asked for in your application? For the five nights a fortnight to be formalised and recitals to ensure stability for your child with both families?

I take it your kids are under school age. Is your ex claiming the free childcare allowance?

Click to expand...

50:50 shared care arrangement as well as definition of holidays and special days to create future structure and stability.

Yes our child is under school age and we have been claiming the 15hrs free. Will also get the 30 in September when the new term starts.

What would be my best approach to gaining access back in the interim? Try to reason some more about the financial situation? Wait for court?

Good morning mate.

So sorry to hear what you are going through.

My head started nodding as soon as we got to the "more money on top of the CMS payments"

Did she instigate the CMS involvement? And then wasn't happy with the outcome due to the overnights you had?

My best advice is to get into business mode. She is. And very rarely does a kind heart win in a business world.

Your kindness and loyalty to your family is unlikely to be rewarded or reciprocal. It will, however, be taken advantage of.

If you can agree without court do so but the red flags are already in place. I would 100% advise you to get a CAO from the courts before you commit to any financial agreement. Your ex will want to do that in reverse. However, what's to stop her from withholding contact completely as soon as she's got a regular wedge from you. It happens all the time and you'd be powerless to stop it.

I urge you to be very cautious with anything you put in writing.

If you are on decent terms really work on the child arrangements. If you can get every other weekend Friday to Monday, one midweek overnight which is 5/14 with half the holidays and an agreement the chklden live wirh you both you might have the maximum you would get via courts. You could get an extra day a week but you could also get far less.

A good order via consent is a good outcome.

Then you talk about finances.

Morning!

nothernsoul said:

Did she instigate the CMS involvement? And then wasn't happy with the outcome due to the overnights you had?

Click to expand...

Yes she originally prevented all access when leaving the family home. Then demanded maintenance. I simply asked for access then she filed for CMS. No discussion or conversation. Its taken a while to get where I was with access. Everything always boils back down to money.

nothernsoul said:

Your kindness and loyalty to your family is unlikely to be rewarded or reciprocal. It will, however, be taken advantage of.

If you can agree without court do so but the red flags are already in place. I would 100% advise you to get a CAO from the courts before you commit to any financial agreement. Your ex will want to do that in reverse. However, what's to stop her from withholding contact completely as soon as she's got a regular wedge from you. It happens all the time and you'd be powerless to stop it.

Click to expand...

This is my worry and why i’ve applied to court.

nothernsoul said:

I urge you to be very cautious with anything you put in writing.

Click to expand...

I have not committed or mentioned anything financially only asked what is it exactly she wanted. I believe its half the child care costs ontop of the CMS. I was getting Wednesday evening with our child which was also typically the day my parents would provide care which she is preventing. So I have stood my ground and said I am not getting access on the other days so she should provide care.

nothernsoul said:

If you are on decent terms really work on the child arrangements. If you can get every other weekend Friday to Monday, one midweek overnight which is 5/14 with half the holidays and an agreement the chklden live wirh you both you might have the maximum you would get via courts. You could get an extra day a week but you could also get far less.

Click to expand...

Decent terms seems to depend on which way the wind is blowing.

I agree with @nothernsoul - if you can still talk, then try and reach some agreements. Although it sounds difficult if she is basically holding you to ransom. ie pay me more or you can only see the child 2 nights a fortnight. So on that basis, it probably is better to go for a Child Arrangements order and then deal with finances. Does a new CMS assessment for 2 nights a fortnight, make a lot of difference financially from when you had 5 nights a fortnight?

It sounds like the disagreement really is about nursery fees. So you're already getting 15 hours a week free childcare. And she wants you to pay half of the rest, is that right? I had a similar issue and just ended up paying it. My ex couldn't afford to pay it and she was working 16 hours a week so the child needed to be in nursery. So are your children in nursery 5 days a week all day? I assume you couldn't have the child during the day if they weren't in nursery? But then she wouldn't want that anyway.

Nursery fees are very expensive. So if she can't afford it then there is a problem regardless - if neither of you can look after the child midweek.

I suggest discussing the nursery issue and see if you can get that resolved and then she may be happy to do the 5 nights a fortnight again.

Maybe you could say - you will pay half the nursery fees if she will agree to a consent order for the 5 nights a fortnight. She might say no because a consent order is binding, but an agreement to pay nursery fees isn't!

But the main thing is to discuss nursery fees with her. How many days a week does the child need to be in nursery (every day?). How long before the 30 free hours kicks in? Once they get to four and start school it won't be an issue.

Did you try mediation before applying to court? Sorry just read back that you had.

So when you said "you would think about it" over her asking for more money, she reacted because you didn't immediately say yes. So try talking about it and keep things calm. Even if it's by message or email. Start with saying you understand her point of view and you want to sort things out and find a solution to nursery fees. And take it from there. Otherwise both of you end up in entrenched positions and it becomes a war to win.