Hello Goodmub
Thank you for your post. I am Sarah, the Child Maintenance Options consultant and I can give you some information about child maintenance that may help you.
The definition of a receiving parent is the person with whom your children have their home with and who usually provides day-to-day care of your children. Factors such as who receives Child Benefit are taken into account to decide which parent is the receiving parent for the purposes of child maintenance. In the circumstances you describe it would appear that you would be considered to be the receiving parent.
Although you said that you would not ask your partner to give you maintenance, your partner has a responsibility to provide financially for your children. You mentioned that you have started to discuss with your partner who will provide what for your children, this is what we call this a family-based arrangement. With this type of arrangement there are no strict rules to follow so you and your partner can agree on the terms of your arrangement. A family-based arrangement is not legally enforceable but it is flexible, so even though your partner is unemployed it can include other kinds of support such as helping with childcare.
To give you an indication of how much child maintenance the Child Maintenance Service may work out, there is an online calculator on our website at
www.cmoptions.org/en/calculator/calculator.asp You may wish to use this figure as a starting point if you were to set up a family-based arrangement.
To help you to make a family-based arrangement, we have some useful tools on our website such as a discussion guide, which can help you to plan your discussion with your partner. We also have a family-based arrangement form, which is not a legally enforceable document but may put your agreement on a more formal basis. You can find these on our website at
www.cmoptions.org
If you would like to find out further information about who can apply for Child Tax Credits and details of benefit and work entitlements you may wish to visit
www.gov.uk
We have a sorting out separation web-app that you may find useful, it offers help and support to separating families. You can find this at
Sorting Out Separation
If you would like to talk to our team in complete confidence about all of your options for arranging child maintenance you could give us a ring on 0800 988 0988. We also have some other useful tools on our website to help support separating parents.
