Child maintenance, travel and contact centre expenses

[JC83]

Hi all,

I’ve had a letter from the CMS as the ex is wanting child maintenance. Pretty galling really given that she is on around x3.5 my salary and made lots of false allegations so I currently do not have overnight contact with my child despite me wanting to. Got an NFA from the police but social services are still recommending no overnight contact (social worker very biased). I have my FHDRA coming up.

Ex is only allowing me to see my child via a contact centre twice a month. She lives a few hours away and it costs me over £400 in total (fuel and centre costs as it’s got to be supervised contact). I understand that the CMS can factor in expenses such as travel to a child and other costs in their payment.

I’m just wondering if anyone has asked the CMS to factor in travel and/or contact centre costs into their payment?

The only flip side is that I’m getting around £600 in interest a month from savings (sold my own home to be with ex). I’m trying to live off this interest plus my salary to avoid tapping into my savings too much whilst the divorce is going through. I’m trying to delay financial proceedings until child arrangements are sorted but expecting court paperwork regarding finances from the ex very soon.

Ex also has a large chunk of proceeds from my house sale in an account in her sole name that will be giving her a nice amount of interest on too. Galling.

I worry that if I mention about expenses to offset my payment she will rant on to CMS about my interest on savings and I’ll end up paying more to her than currently asked for. Having said that, I wouldn’t be surprised if she mentions my savings interest to CMS now to try and get an increased payment.

Any thoughts on how to proceed and experiences of offsetting expenses with the CMS?

Thanks all

 

[Roblox]

How the Child Maintenance Service works out child maintenance

See how the Child Maintenance Service works out maintenance and the rates they use

www.gov.uk

Hi

The above may be useful if you've not already seen it.

I don't think the contact centre cost itself is deductible but will defer to others on that point

 

[JC83]

Hi all,

I did some further digging into this with the CMS. I applied for a variation of expenses to take into account the ex was insisting I only see my child through a family centre. I got the below reply:

‘We cannot take into consideration the actual costs of the contact centre as it is not within The Child Support (Variations) Regulations 2000. Within the regulation, it shows a complete and exhaustive list of all the travel related and minor incidental costs that we can take into consideration in your maintenance calculation. Unfortunately, ‘Contact Centre Costs' are not on that list and therefore will not be taken into consideration.’

Hope that clears things up for other dads going through similar.

 

[Roblox]

It's a shame some kind of deduction isn't allowed for the centre costs. Even if it was say a relatively low percentage once so many sessions had been attended and there's positive reports from the centre itself.

 

[JC83]

I completely agree @Roblox . The centre I use costs over £80ph for supervision in the community so it’s a very expensive financial outlay each time. Still, at least I get to have some time with child which means more than money. Hoping these reports will help me at the FHDRA.