Stopping Maintenance Payments with 50/50 Lives With Order

[Anon3000]

My partner (dad) has recently been awarded 50/50 lives with, and is awaiting the final sealed order from the Court.

For the last 8 years he has been paying a large amount of maintenance, arranged privately. On top of this he pays for everything for his son - extra curricular activities, tutoring, school trips, uniform, new clothes and shoes etc. Mother pays for almost nothing. She is allegedly self employed, I say allegedly as I think it's more of a hobby but she refers to it as 'work'. Mother claims child benefit.

Obviously we are going to stop the maintenance but need to do this in the best way possible to avoid it blowing up. We are going to offer to pay on a decreasing scale until July 2025, to allow her to build her 'business' or find employment. We will also offer to continue to pay the majority of day to day costs.

I've been doing a lot of research about how CMS are applying the rules incorrectly and dads are ending up at tribunal, having to prove that they pay at least an equal amount of 'day to day' expenses. The issue seems to be when the mother is receiving child benefit they are classed as the 'main parent' even if they aren't.

My question is how to approach this with the ex to avoid her running to CMS and this ending up in another massive legal battle. I know it probably will anyway, but any tips would be appreciated. Thanks all.

 

[Dirge]

How the final CAO is worded will have a lot to do with it, as ASH has said in previous threads, if it says something along the lines of " for the avoidance of doubt, this provides for a full and equal share of the day to day care of the children". I believe it could still be a fight- as you point out CMS do take the easy way out and argue who has the child benefit, (which is usually the mother)? If your partner is paying a lot, and is still going to pay majority of day to day costs, if it comes to it, stop paying all day to day costs, and tell ex this contribution will now be paid as child maintenance, as per CMS calculation. Depends how reasonable his ex is. I'm guessing if you're on this forum, then not very!

 

[Anon3000]

Haha not reasonable at all, she’s bats**t

The order is worded very simply:

Child shall live with both parents.

Child shall live with dad Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday overnights (week 1) and Monday, Tuesday overnights (week 2). All other times child lives with mother.

It also says parent who has him in the morning takes him to school and the one who has him in the evening collects him from school.

School holidays same applies.

So no times mentioned, just refers to whole days including overnights.

 

[Dirge]

If you haven't all ready, Start keeping receipts for everything that is being paid for the children. If CMS do become involved, prepare for a protracted fight. Maybe suggest mediation to try to thrash out an agreement with ex, (sounds unlikely she'll go for that though). Good luck.

 

[Anon3000]

I’ve started collecting receipts. It’s pathetic that after a 2 year legal battle for 50/50, we’ve now got another battle ahead for the maintenance nah she won’t agree to mediation, she’s the most irrational person I’ve ever met! Thanks for your help.

 

[Ash]

I think probably the best way to deal with it is, when you have your sealed order, contact the CMS yourself and say there is an equal shared care order and you believe you should no longer be paying maintenance. They will probably ask to see a copy of the order.

Child shall live with dad Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday overnights (week 1) and Monday, Tuesday overnights (week 2). All other times child lives with mother.

It's possible CMS will say that if Monday to Sunday just says "overnights" and "all other times child lives with Mother" that this means the child technically spends more time with the Mother as it doesn't say from 9am Monday to 9am Monday. If the word overnights wasn't there and it said child shall live with Dad Monday from school through to the following Monday - then they may count it as a full and equal week. Doesn't the order specify what time changeovers are?

 

[Ash]

I can't quite work that out actually. If they're with you 7 nights in week 1 and 2 nights in week 2 - that's more than 50/50 isn't it?

 

[Anon3000]

No it’s Monday, Tuesday with dad, (then Wednesday, Thursday with mum) then Friday, Saturday and Sunday alternated. So it’s exactly 50/50.

It also says the parent who has son in morning takes him to school, and parent who has him in evening collects him from school. So in effect it’s clarifying that handovers take place at school, thereby by deduction you can see the time is equal between parents.

It then says the arrangement continues throughout the year inc holidays.

This stuff is crazy. Any normal sane person can see it’s 50/50, so why are the cms interested in picking holes when they should be running after the parents who are refusing to pay legitimate claims?!

 

[Anon3000]

I think probably the best way to deal with it is, when you have your sealed order, contact the CMS yourself and say there is an equal shared care order and you believe you should no longer be paying maintenance. They will probably ask to see a copy of the order.

Our arrangement is private, do you think it’s wise to raise it with cms? Is there an advantage to us raising it rather than her?

 

[Anon3000]

Sorry to spam. We also have message from ex (via her mum) asking that handovers take place at 3pm during school holidays, thereby showing time remains equal between parents during holidays. Surely that counts for something

 

[Dirge]

Once you have the CAO, it might be better to contact CMS yourself, before ex does, as it might be easier to prevent payments starting, rather than getting them stopped once ex has got them in place. Don't tell ex you're going to reduce payments until your ducks are in a row. Also, simple calculation, compare what you are paying now, with what you'd be paying under CMS - 12percent for 1 child of gross taxable income, less 50 percent of that. Think it works out at slightly less than 50percent reduction with a 50/50 order. That would be worst case, obviously you're going to contest if CMS demand you pay.

 

[Ash]

Agree that it would be better to contact them yourselves. Unless you want to carry on with the private arrangement, but assume you'd be not wanting to do that if it's 50/50. She must know this is coming. I found if you open a case yourself they are quite good to deal with. If an ex opens the case, they will base CMS on whatever she tells them and you'd have a fight to get it changed again.

The thing that made me think they might say it's not a full 50/50 is where it says all other times with Mother. But you might be lucky! Even if they assess there is CM to pay then presumably it wouldn't be much.

 

[Anon3000]

The thing that made me think they might say it's not a full 50/50 is where it says all other times with Mother. But you might be lucky! Even if they assess there is CM to pay then presumably it wouldn't be much.

Yes that's the bit that worried me. But if we have written proof from her that handovers all take place at 3pm, then surely that's her agreeing that it's 50/50?

Thanks, I will speak with my partner about talking to cms before we do anything. He'll get his P60 in April so we will do it from that. I've done a rough calculation using the gov website and it works out to £10pw less than we are paying at the moment. We pay a lot as my partner is lucky enough to be a high earner, but according to the website we should have been paying even more! If we had been paying the 'recommended' amount, then it would work out as a reduction of £60pw. Still far too much when dad is taking an equal (if not majority) role in day to day parenting.

If we are made to continue paying her, even at the reduced rate, then perhaps we will tell her that all expenses have to be paid from the maintenance. That'll give her a shock, she currently pays for absolutely nothing.

 

[Ash]

CMS will just get the figures directly from HMRC - all done on computer. But the online calculator helps get an idea. He can just tell them it's an equal shared care order with half the time with each parent. They will contact the ex and if she agrees that they will probably accept it's 50/50. If she doesn't agree that then they may ask to see the specific order wording.

 

[Anon3000]

Had a chat about it all with my partner tonight. Judging by the calculation we have just done on the website, it looks like we have underpaid her (via private agreement ) whilst having son for 4/14 nights. Not sure how long for.

Has anyone heard of cms telling you to pay back payments on a private agreement ? We obviously don’t want to be stung, particularly when my partner has paid for so much above and beyond maintenance.

 

[Dirge]

I think it would be unlikely that CMS would require you to make back payments when a CMS order wasn't in force, maybe others could confirm this. I recently informed CMS of an increase in my wages that would require an increase in payments. There was a delay of several months between initially informing them and getting a new payment schedule, (their fault), and they didn't ask for back payment on that.

 

[Ash]

I'm pretty sure they don't do back payments in that way. Hopefully they will accept he has a 50/50 order. It might depend what his ex says to them. They will always base things on what the Mother says, unless a court order shows otherwise. But that's why it's good to contact them yourself as you get to speak to them first and then they phone the ex. They might say, Mr Ex says there is a 50/50 court order, do you agree. Hopefully she will just say yes if she's not prepared for it.

 

[DannyK]

Hello @Anon3000

As soon as I got my CAO (which wasn't 50/50 unfortunately) inked in March 2023, I offered a private child maintenance arrangement to my Ex (who doesn't work and is bank rolled by her mother), which Ex rejected - and so I opened a case myself with CMS and (so far) have found them to be very reasonable.

After I opened the case with them, they calculated that I should be paying LESS than the private arrangement I offered Ex, so this is what she now gets!

She obviously had a fit and demanded a Mandatory Reconsideration (which found in my favour) and then she appealed that decision too - so now we have a First Tier Tribunal to look forward to at some point in the future..

In the meantime, she's been trying to unwind our CAO saying our daughter has returned from weekends with "marks and bruises" and been "emotionally struggling" with overnights..

Ex even claimed she had been a victim of domestic violence and then duped my daughter's GP into believing I was dangerous - my daughter's GP then arranged for Social Services to interview our 4yr old.. thank goodness SS ultimately decided no further action was needed, but obviously these events have left me feeling extremely anxious as am just waiting for the next phone call / email out of the blue to say fresh allegations have been made and my daughter has been reinterviewed.

Strap yourself in for the long haul because when their money is threatened, they will stoop to any depth to try and get Contact revoked and the full payout reinstated..

 

[Resolute]

I you

 

[Anon3000]

Thanks all. We’re going to look into the back payments further before deciding what to do. If it’s a possibility then we’ll probably decide to just leave things as they are and not rock the boat. There’s been a private agreement for 9 years and no idea how much of that has been underpaid or by how much. Does anyone know if historical CM banding figures are available? It would be useful to know how much the liability could be and we can make an informed decision.