Shared Care and Children's Expenses

Another thing to bear in mind is that if you claim CB and CTC the figure that is paid will be far lower due to your higher income. That means all round you will all lose out.

Another thing to bear in mind is that if you claim CB and CTC the figure that is paid will be far lower due to your higher income. That means all round you will all lose out.

Hi all,

Thanks everyone for the responses. I'll answer the various points, but just wanted to reiterate my original question:

Does anyone have a 50/50 (or thereabouts) shared care situation, where there is no CM and they decide to share expenses (after school clubs, school trips, clothes, the usual)?

And if so, how do they split things? Again, my reasoning was to split things 50/50 based on care, but ex's sol thinks expenses should be split proportionally based on income, and I should pay more.

Haven't had any comments on that, and would appreciate it (though maybe no one is in this situation?)

The CB/WTC is another matter entirely. Our original agreement, which ex and I worked out, was:

- shared care, me having the kids 55% of time, him 45%

- keep pensions out, as we both have small pensions that are relatively equal in size

- I stay in FMH and buy ex out (equity split is 55% to him, 45% to me on the grounds that his income is lower and he is older)

- he gets CB and WTC for both kids

- no CM either way and we split their expenses 50/50

His sol came back saying expenses should be split 60/40 because my income was higher. I had given ex CB and CTC to allow him to contribute to expenses more equally (and they usually are only around £100/month, so not huge), but agreed.

Then ex decided child care should not be considered a general children's expense (I have child care expenses, and he doesn't...). So my monthly children's expenses were suddenly quite a bit higher than his.

At this point, it seemed a bit unfair that he was claiming all the benefits for both children, but the expenses were mainly on my side. So I suggested that I claim CB for one child, and that he claim CB for the other, and continue to claim WTC for both (my understanding, from other postings in this forum, is that that is possible - if it weren't, and he would effectively lose the WTC for that child, I wouldn't press it). But he has said no, so we're kind of stuck there.

When it boils down to it, it's not so much about the money, I think in part it's the idea of being a non resident parent when in fact I have majority care and I guess I'm just tired of his sol chipping away at things: our case was in theory very simply and probably could have been decided in an afternoon, but due to ex's anger (and sol's careful nurturing of said!), this has been going on for months...

We started with 50-50 care.

Spilt the child benefit and tax credits 50-50, no maintenance.

We worked out costs such as after school club, school uniform and hobbies and then paid half each.

But we both earnt similar amounts.


As the years have gone on this has changed a bit.

So you incur childcare costs and he doesnt.

I would have thought that as his income is increase by WTC and CB and yours decreased by childcare cost the difference between your incomes is very small and so I dont think a 60/40 split of all additional expense is fair.

At the end of the day you have the children more than him so technically your cost are higher with regard to the children than his.

Justaparent wrote:

We started with 50-50 care.

Spilt the child benefit and tax credits 50-50, no maintenance.

We worked out costs such as after school club, school uniform and hobbies and then paid half each.

But we both earnt similar amounts.


As the years have gone on this has changed a bit.

Thanks for that - sounds like your situation was more straightforward (wish mine was...!).

jaymdee wrote:

So you incur childcare costs and he doesnt.

I would have thought that as his income is increase by WTC and CB and yours decreased by childcare cost the difference between your incomes is very small and so I dont think a 60/40 split of all additional expense is fair.

At the end of the day you have the children more than him so technically your cost are higher with regard to the children than his.

Thanks, and I agree. You've given me another idea to propose to him, which is that he keeps CB and WTC, I pay childcare, but we split the rest 50/50. Fingers crossed...