Help! Partner's Ex taking advantage! :(

Hi all

My partner divorced her ex last year and the maintenance was based n a 50-50 custody agreement. There are three kids involved, all under 14. (For long-winded reasons, she did not go through a solicitor for this arrangement.)

The children sleep at his house for half the time - Friday night to the next Friday morning - on Dad weeks), we have them sleeping here for half the time (same arrangement for Mum weeks).

HOWEVER.

In practice, the children arrive at our house at 8am, and get picked up at 6pm. This means that although they *sleep* at his house, they actually spend at least three hours a day extra with us depending on changes in arrangements etc (which is obviously no problem, but is not reflected in the maintenance payments that are calculated as 50-50 access).
Also, over the holidays (i.e. summer) my partner has the children during the entire day on nearly every day - even on Dad weeks - when he is at work, which is not reflected in any financial recompense with her, (and is obviously a strain on us financially).

Our problem is that the CSA website only calculates payments based on nights spent at alternate places - even though the current arrangement is that even on Dad weeks, the children actually only spend whole days at their fathers on a Saturday and a Sunday, and essentially just *sleep there* on "his" weeks.

After a calculation of how much more time we have them than he does, it actually turns out that we have them for 60% of the time, and he has them for 40%, although this isn't possible to work out on the online CSA calculator (as it only deals with nights spent, rather than time spent).

To muddy the waters further, as of five weeks ago one of the children (who is autistic) suddenly found it very difficult to go to the fathers house, and as a consequence the father returned her and told us that he would not be having her at his house at all during the week anymore.

As a consequence, we have had her now for all but 2 nights of the last 5 weeks (which she managed to spend at her fathers house).

Instead of going through solicitors or the CSA, my partner has asked the father direct for some extra money to pay for food and other sundries for the child who is now staying with us for 28 nights of the month (extra washing, electric, heating etc - which has made a difference!), but he has offered a very low sum and is unwilling to negotiate any more.

What would be our best course of action? We are genuinely financially struggling a bit now, based on the realities of paying out a lot more than we counted on over the holidays, and having an extra body in the house to bathe, feed, heat and so on... what can we do? Who can we talk to? Would it be worth going to the CSA and asking for a recalculation based on hours rather than nights spent? Would a solicitor be worth checking with for such an arrangement?

Thanks in advance - you have been a MASSIVE hekp to me before on here on a different matter.

Who receives the child benefit and any child tax credits if these are applicable?

I think it is a very lucky family if after divorce they have a fair split of financing the children.

You may find yourselves worse off if you chase this, if he pays for other things during his time with them, what you gain with one hand you could lose with the other.

Thanks for the advice - much appreciated! We are monitoring it at the moment to see if anything is forthcoming...

Horrible that the kids are being talked of as commodoties.

Ghastly. I am hugely out of pocket with my daughters. Who cares? I love my kids. That is priceless. I cannot believe that you get away with posting stuff like that and anyone actually takes it seriously.

Hi
The CSA calculations as far as I am aware are based on nights, which is a somewhat bizar situation since children don't cost a lot to run when they are asleep. The problem with the CSA is that it isn't there to benefit children or parents its there to cut benefits that the government would have to pay out if NRP parents didn't. Once you go to the CSA you are on a very steep and ultimatly detrimental slope. The whole CSA system links contat and finance together and that frequently leads to the RP refusing contact purely in order to benefit financially through the CSA assessment. The big losers in that are the children who are denied the rights to a relationship with the NRP. Ultimatly that then has the potential to escallate into court for contact to be re-established.

It is something of a mystery to me that under the CSA there is still a payment due from the NRP to the RP.

LB

midautumnmagpie wrote:

Horrible that the kids are being talked of as commodoties.

Ghastly. I am hugely out of pocket with my daughters. Who cares? I love my kids. That is priceless. I cannot believe that you get away with posting stuff like that and anyone actually takes it seriously.

Who cares...the mortgage provider/landlord, the utility providers, anyone waiting for their slice of the dwindling income!! There is a difference between being 'out of pocket' to slowly sinking financially until you're flat broke, or homeless!! We all love our children which is why we're on this site in the first place...to find solutions to enable us to provide for them.

Your self-righteous comments are unhelpful and unnecessary

jaw

It seems odd to me that the csa counts nights. Think it should be 24hr periods of time, so NRP collects at 4.30pm one day and returns 4.30pm the next day.

Any costs during that time should be covered by NRP and then any costs occurred outside of the contact period should be covered by RP.

Agree Jaw, magpies comments not helpful.