Child maintenance

Hi I wonder if anyone can give me some advice.

I have been separated for over a year now I have two small children who mostly live with me. My ex doesn''t give me any maintenance towards the children he still pays the mortgage but the day to day stuff the children need falls to me. I have written to his sols on occasions asking for some contribution but all requests are ignored.

I am struggling financially I have maximised my income as much as I can by increasing hours and tax credits etc but it''s hard. Things have been less than amicable and I have had to Put up with a lot of nastiness from him even though he left us for his affair partner and they have a baby.

I don''t want the world just some help. We have got financial hearing soon and even though he is a high tax payer he makes himself in a lot of debt.

Should I go through the child maintainace options?

I could have written this a couple of months ago - I had the same dilemma as you - my stbx pays 1/2 the interest on the mortgage (we are in arrears), but does not give me anything to help with the 3 kids that live with me full time.

He is also dragging his heels about any financial settlement.

I applied to the cms and was awarded an amount in spite of the fact that he pays towards the mortgage - it is well worth doing.

You do not have to speak to your ex - they handle all the discussions.

Presumably my stbx will now stop paying towards the interest - but since we are in arrears anyway I am not sure that matters.

Thank you for the info.

In fact I think my ex is being a bit silly because if I go through the Csa I believe they will use last years p60 which includes his annual bonus. But if we could sort this out ourselves I would be willing to negotiate and a monthly figure based on his basic salary and a percentage of his bonus then if he does get a bonus well that''s a bonus for me and the children but if he doesn''t then at least I get some maintenance. I think that is fair but he won''t play but we have got financial proceedings next month.

Might be worth working out how much he would have to pay via CMS and how much he is paying for the mortgage in lieu of CM.

If what he has to pay via CMS is less and he chooses not to make up the difference then you may end up worse off rather than better unless you think he will be happy to carry on paying the mortgage as well but from your comments this sounds unlikely.