Hello everyone, first post !
I have had a child arrangement order in place for around 7 years now, which originally had 3 nights per week and one night with my mother when I work abroad.
This has changed in the last 3.5 years too 5 nights per week when I'm home, and 2 nights per week when I'm abroad. Which brings it too 50/50 (give or take a day)
Recently the mother has asked to reduce the nights I have my daughter by 2 nights per month which I agreed to. It wasn't until recently i found she did this to have the majority care so she could recieve the DLA for our child.
For years now I have paid everything for our daughter, including clothes, most recently i moved my daughter to a private school because of her SEN requirements, which has now added on school fees, uniforms, transport, lunches and school trips which amount to around 16k per year. I did agree with the mother to originally pay the fees but lately she has said she will not pay for uniform, school trips or anything to do with school. This has frustrated me since she recieves child benefit and DLA which are payments made to make our daughters life better.
I'm going to start the process for a variation to have 50/50 shared care as before so she can't decide she wants to change anything again, And also to try obtain the child benefit and get a court order to have the DLA payments made to me, I am not rich by any means but with the new school VAT introduced and now me paying for trips and uniform solely by myself. It's hard to keep my head above the water.
Has anyone had a similar experience? From the last court process I went through i was under the impression that every judge will aim for 50/50 shared custody as this is the best outcome for all parties - so hoping it will be relatively straightforward, I'm just unsure about the DLA and child benefits being changed...
thanks in advance!
I have had a child arrangement order in place for around 7 years now, which originally had 3 nights per week and one night with my mother when I work abroad.
This has changed in the last 3.5 years too 5 nights per week when I'm home, and 2 nights per week when I'm abroad. Which brings it too 50/50 (give or take a day)
Recently the mother has asked to reduce the nights I have my daughter by 2 nights per month which I agreed to. It wasn't until recently i found she did this to have the majority care so she could recieve the DLA for our child.
For years now I have paid everything for our daughter, including clothes, most recently i moved my daughter to a private school because of her SEN requirements, which has now added on school fees, uniforms, transport, lunches and school trips which amount to around 16k per year. I did agree with the mother to originally pay the fees but lately she has said she will not pay for uniform, school trips or anything to do with school. This has frustrated me since she recieves child benefit and DLA which are payments made to make our daughters life better.
I'm going to start the process for a variation to have 50/50 shared care as before so she can't decide she wants to change anything again, And also to try obtain the child benefit and get a court order to have the DLA payments made to me, I am not rich by any means but with the new school VAT introduced and now me paying for trips and uniform solely by myself. It's hard to keep my head above the water.
Has anyone had a similar experience? From the last court process I went through i was under the impression that every judge will aim for 50/50 shared custody as this is the best outcome for all parties - so hoping it will be relatively straightforward, I'm just unsure about the DLA and child benefits being changed...
thanks in advance!