Hi Kentenglishrose
Thank you for you post, I am William the Child Maintenance Options consultant. You have indicated in your post that you have a
Consent Order in place with your ex-husband. I understand that your ex-husband has contacted the Child Support Agency (CSA) and stated that he would transfer the £1249 agreed by the courts, however, you only received £880.
Any Consent Orders that were endorsed after March 2003 are not legally subject to change unless they have been in place for at least 12 months. After 12 months, either parent can apply to the CSA and the Consent Order will no longer be valid.
Once a Consent Order has been agreed and authorised, the paying parent is legally liable to pay the amount the court has endorsed. However, the court does not monitor or collect payments. Therefore, you will need to seek legal advice for any missed or reduced payments, unless you are happy to accept them. It is possible to change the terms of your Consent Order and to do this you will need to get legal advice. This most commonly results in going back to court to set out the application on a standard form. The court will then consider any changes. If you would like to pursue changing your Consent Order, you may find the following link useful on finding legal advice
find-legal-advice.justice.gov.uk/. Alternatively, you may wish to contact your solicitor that has been dealing with your Consent Order.
In regards to any spousal maintenance that has been discussed within your Consent Order, you would need to seek legal advice as to where you stand with this, as we are not experts in this field.
We have a sorting out separation web-app on our website at
www.wikivorce.com/divorce/Sorting-Out-Separation.html that you may find useful as it offers help and support to separated families.
If you would like to talk to our team in complete confidence about child maintenance you could give us a ring on 0800 988 0988 between 8am and 8pm Monday to Friday or 9am and 4pm on Saturday. Alternatively, for useful tools and guides, you can visit our website at
www.cmoptions.org.
William