Hi Paul1131
Thank you for your post, I am William the Child Maintenance Options consultant. Under child support legislation, regular child maintenance payments must be made until a child is 16 years old, or 20 if they are in full-time, non-advanced education (A-level or equivalent), or for as long as Child Benefit is being paid.
Also, anyone aged 16 or 17 who is not in education, is not working and does not receive employment related benefits, is also defined as a child. When a child leaves full-time education in the summer, Child Benefit generally continues until the first week of September. For information on the course that are classed as non-advanced education, you may find this website useful,
www.gov.uk/child-benefit-16-19.
With you having a family-based arrangement in place with your son’s mum, you may wish to try to discuss and negotiate with her when your payments would end. With a family-based arrangement there are no strict rules or formulas to follow when calculating child maintenance.
Family-based arrangements are not legally binding. However, they can be quick, easy and free to set up. They also give you the flexibility to change your arrangement as your son gets older and his needs change, or if either you or your son’s mum has a change in circumstances.
To help you and your son’s mum continue your family-based arrangement, we have some useful tools and guides available to download from our website at
www.cmoptions.org/en/toolbox/index.asp.
We have a sorting out separation web-app that you may find useful, it offers help and support to separated families. You can find this at
www.wikivorce.com/divorce/Sorting-Out-Separation.html.
If you would a confidential chat with Child Maintenance Options team or find out more about all the options available for child maintenance, you can call us free on 0800 988 0988 between 8am and 8pm Monday to Friday or 9am and 4pm on Saturday, alternatively you can visit our website at
www.cmoptions.org.
William
