In summary, I am enquiring as to (1) whether there are ever exceptions made to the adjustment for overnight stays? and (2) where the CMO site refers to "175 or more (more than 3 nights a week)" which is the criteria, "a total of 175" or the "more than 3 nights a week"? “More than 3 nights a week” is 156 nights or more, not 175 nights. My children are with me at least 163 nights a year.
[While I am at it, is the Wikivorce CM calculator out of date? It is giving a wildly different answer...]
The long background is this:
I have three children aged 4, 7 and 8, under a family based arrangement, .
In school holidays their time (and overnights) are split equally between myself and the mother.
For the 39 weeks of school term, every Monday and Thursday they stay with their mother, every Wednesday they stay with me; Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays alternate; every Tuesday they alternate, albeit on "Mummy Tuesday" I pick them up from school and look after them until they go to the their mothers for tea and bed. This Tuesday gives a fortnightly split of 6 vs 8 overnights. The mother has told me I need to obtain a court order if I want to change this to 50:50 on nights (you can guess why...).
I do the morning school run seven days out of ten; evening school run 4 days out of ten. Inset days are split, as are Bank Holidays. They have also stayed extra nights with me on occasion to suit her requests (twice so far this year).
On average over a year the children are with me at least 162 nights, i.e. more than 3 nights a week.
At FDR the judge stated that ours was clearly a case of shared care and our needs should be assessed as the same. We did not go to a Final Hearing.
So is any allowance made for the shared nature of care outside of the metric of over night stays?
Twenty months ago I agreed to a family based arrangement, governed by
Consent Order. The consent order made it clear that the
child maintenance was only enforceable for the first twelve months (which I believe is just stating the law).
Our circumstances have now changed somewhat. My net income has reduced this year by £600pcm; my ex wife''s net income is now approximately £1,800 pcm high than mine. She has commenced cohabiting with her (unemployed) partner and his son, who have moved into her house; I am aware that this in itself does not affect child maintenance, but it has lead to her being reluctant to revisit the family based arrangement.
Using the software on the CMO site it would appear that the arrangement we have is at least £50 higher than we would have using the CMO service - but £200 higher than it could be if the criterion were more than 3 nights a week in average over the year. If we followed the judge I might not pay at all.
I am worried that CMO might be a "computer says no" type organisation, but any thoughts and comments from you guys would be welcome.
Many thanks for your time
Big_Jim
