Are holidays counted as nights stayed with NRP

Hi All,

I''m in the early stages of a separation from the stbx missus. Still living in same house at present.

Having used the CMS calculator to work out my CM commitments, I settled on 2-3 nights per week based on the fact that I intend having the kids 2 nights every week, plus I will be taking them additionally for holidays etc over and above this.

STBX says holidays are a ''bonus'' and are at her discretion.

Can anyone clarify this?

Thanks in advance

Holidays are at her discretion????????? No they are not! Children are entilted to BOTH their parents, it''s not for the mother to decide but for BOTH to be agreed upon.

This mentality needs changing, fathers do have to pull their weight in the parenting, but mothers have to stop thinking they hold all the cards in hand.

Otherwise, sorry, not 100% sure, but i think the holidays count and are averaged over the year. It''s certainly makes a difference to me when they are away for a couple of weeks and there is no more childcare or food to pay for because they are with their father.

Thanks Juliette,

My reasoning was similar as it does make reference on the CMS website to nights stayed being viewed as an annual number of days. In my case this would be in the 2-3 night bracket due to the holidays.

When the time comes I will attempt (if possible?) to get some holiday agreements written in to any Separation Agreements.

Thanks!

Yes, holidays do count as you take the overall number of nights per year and average it out. It can sometimes mean that you are paying maintenance when you have the children for nearly the whole month, but over the year it works itself out.
It''s definitely worth getting a watertight definition of ''holidays'' written into any agreement, including special dates (mothers/fathers days, family birthdays, Christmas, bank holidays) as not doing so may be used against you in the future.

I had a conversation with child maintenance service with regards to this. Brief summary first ; I''m the dad and I gained residence without the help of a solicitor (I''m not a god it was mainly down to stbx actions and her having a terrible solicitor). We now have a court order in place that says she has the children for 3 weekends out of 4 and holidays are to be as arranged between ourselves. I told the wording to CMS and they said only the stated weekends would count towards calculating maintenance. So I would say that whilst you have no legal arrangement in place it is all a bit vague for the CMS, so really you need some sort of signed arrangement which you should include set dates or set dates during school year with a clearly defined number of days the children are to be in your care during holidays (as trying to set in stone specific days may not be possible)
I would call Child Maintenance Options as they are happy to offer advice and if you state the arrangements you have or propose to have they may be able to say how it will affect CM(?)
Hope this helps??