Should I contact CMS?

[phunky]

The ex-wife reached out today asking to draw up a legal agreement around maintenance payments and child arrangements.

We’ve had a personal agreement in place for both of these since we separated. I pay her £708 a month for my two kids, this was based on my expected yearly earnings at the time.

I had just a Limited Company two days before finding out about more infidelity and finally decided to divorce her.

I initially agree to her request of only having the kids 3 nights every two weeks, due to me moving into my parents property temporarily and had the expectation that once I found somewhere to rent closer it would go 50/50 - this never happened…

I now have the kids 4 nights every two weeks, so 104 days a year and I’m likely paying more than I should for my ~£69k income, but I didn’t think it was worth the friction to get payments reduced.

However we have been divorced for over a year now with a clean break, she got 80% of the family home and I’m stuck on mortgage until my youngest is 18 via a Mesher order.

She id basically saying I’m withholding earnings to keep maintenance payments low on purpose and that it’s not fair on the children

I always expected this would happen at some point, I planned to contact CMS when it did and start proceedings myself as I’m not hiding funds, I’ve shared my SA302s with her so she can check for herself.

I’ve also stated I want arrangement changed to 50/50 as I’ve always said but she didn’t like that as she knows she’ll lose all payments with that.

Can I just ring CMS and get the ball rolling? I’d rather be the one that starts this, then have a letter land on my doormat randomly one day.

 

[Ash]

Yes you can just call the CMS and ask to open a case and be assessed. I did exactly that and it showed my ex that the assessment was drastically less than I was paying. I informed her I would continue to pay the same amount as before (ie more than the assessment). I had partly done it to stop her demanding more money all the time, but also in the hope she wouldn't try and prevent my son coming if I kept paying the original amount rather than the assessed amount. It kind of worked up to a point but leverage works both ways - if I did start paying less as per assessed she would almost certainly have alienated my son again and tried to keep him away - out of revenge.

So I would get the assessment from the CMS. Then perhaps contact your ex and say that you propose to continue to pay the currrent amount, rather than the lower assessed amount but you really do want to spend more time with your kids and request an additional night a week.

Possibly. Just a suggestion. Do you have a Child Arrangements order? If not, and you pay a lower assessed rate, your ex might stop the kids coming, then you'd need to go to court. If you already have a CAO that is much less likely to happen or she'd be in breach.

 

[phunky]

I’ll look at doing this in the morning then, least it’ll be a more formal agreement and direct her to them when she starts to kick up a fuss…

 

[Ash]

Sorry I just edited and updated my message above

 

[phunky]

Yes you can just call the CMS and ask to open a case and be assessed. I did exactly that and it showed my ex that the assessment was drastically less than I was paying. I informed her I would continue to pay the same amount as before (ie more than the assessment). I had partly done it to stop her demanding more money all the time, but also in the hope she wouldn't try and prevent my son coming if I kept paying the original amount rather than the assessed amount. It kind of worked up to a point but leverage works both ways - if I did start paying less as per assessed she would almost certainly have alienated my son again and tried to keep him away - out of revenge.

So I would get the assessment from the CMS. Then perhaps contact your ex and say that you propose to continue to pay the currrent amount, rather than the lower assessed amount but you really do want to spend more time with your kids and request an additional night a week.

Possibly. Just a suggestion. Do you have a Child Arrangements order? If not, and you pay a lower assessed rate, your ex might stop the kids coming, then you'd need to go to court. If you already have a CAO that is much less likely to happen or she'd be in breach.

I’ve not got a CAO, I’ve been avoiding doing that as had a terrible experience with that as a child myself.

She actually wants me to have them more but only on a whim when it suits her. I stated I’m happy to change the arrangement but unless it’s the kids requesting more time (which they do!) then we should stick to the arrangement.

I see now that the child arrangement was just don’t to give her a better position with the financial order, but now every school holiday she wants me to have them more.

I wouldn’t even mind if she just asked, but it’s always done in a back hand manner as if she’s doing me a favour. When in reality she just can’t handle them not being at school.

 

[Ash]

I was in a similar situation for years. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't sometimes. I wanted to try and keep things amicable for my son (even though everything was being dictated on her terms) but it didn't give him any stability, not having a regular schedule and things chopping and changing. He was like a parcel. I only went to court in the end when she went nuclear and stopped him coming. It wasn't a great time for him for a year or so, but after a good final order he said things were much better now. Because he knew where he was going to be when and knew his Mother couldn't overrule me.

Anyway if it's working ok informally then yes, why rock the boat. But do keep records of every time your kids are with you in case you ever do need to go to court. I suspect if you reduce the CM she might be much less amicable.

 

[phunky]

I keep record of every time their with me in my calendar just incase it’s sad it has to come to this, but not a surprise.

This is all a claw back attempt because I refused to remortgage the house with her due to fix rate ending.

She doesn’t seem to grasp that I’m not financially responsible for her anymore and that she can’t use the kids as leverage.

Suspect now that I’ve final bought another property she’s worried that they’ll want to spend more time with me as she has run the family home ragged it’s absolutely filthy and even the kids complain about it.

 

[Ash]

Thing is though, she can use the kids as leverage if she set her mind to make life difficult and manipulate the situation. Maybe she's not like that I don't know. Does she work?

 

[phunky]

She hadn’t worked for 10yrs when I left, believe she’s doing some minimum hours alongside her UC payments.

She has already attempted this with them, but they’re good at calling her out. I do get what you’re saying though.