Hi Ferbin
Thank you for your post, I am William the
child maintenance Options consultant. I understand that you have a family-based arrangement in place with your son''s mother. You have mentioned that you are struggling to pay the amount of maintenance that you have agreed. With you having a family-based arrangement in place you may wish to try to discuss and negotiate your maintenance payments with your son''s mother.
With a family-based arrangement there are no strict rules or formulas to follow, they are flexible to suit the needs of both parents and their children. Family-based arrangements do not just have to be about money, you and your son''s mother could discuss to incorporate paying for nursery fees or clothing for your son. Family-based arrangements are not legally binding and there is no one to enforce payments if they are missed. If one parent breaks the agreement, you should try to talk to them as soon as possible to sort out any problems.
If either parent has a change in circumstances, negotiation also plays a big part in ensuring that payments continue. If you or your son''s mother''s or your son''s circumstances change over time, remember to review and update your arrangement together. If you feel that
mediation may help, there are organisations who are experts in that area. Please visit
find-legal-advice.justice.gov.uk/ in order to find a mediator in your area.
If you would like an idea how much child maintenance you may be asked to pay if an application were made via the Child Support Agency (CSA), you can use our online calculator, which you have mentioned you have already looked at. This is on our website at
www.cmoptions.org/en/calculator. You may want to use this figure for negotiations to help you with your family-based arrangement. The CSA works out child maintenance using the paying parent''s income, which includes earnings, money from an occupational or personal pension and tax credits. They use the amount of income left after deductions such as Income Tax, National Insurance and any money paid into a personal pension scheme. There are many other financial factors that may be taken into account by the CSA, so you may wish to speak with them directly about your concerns. This website
www.gov.uk/child-support-agency provides their contact details.
To help you maintain your family-based arrangement, we have got a number of tools and guides available on our website at
www.cmoptions.org that you may find useful.
If you feel that you can not renegotiate your family-based arrangement with your son''s mother, I have included a brief description of the other options available to set up child maintenance. There are two ways that you can claim child maintenance through the Statutory Scheme, one option is called Direct Pay. This is where the CSA calculate maintenance payments on parents'' behalf and then leave it up to them to make the payments between themselves. There is also a full collection service available via the CSA, which is the called Collect and Pay. They calculate, collect and enforce payments on a parent''s behalf and, because arrangements made using the CSA are legally enforceable, will take action if payments are not made. If you decide to use the statutory maintenance service in the future, then just to let you know that your responsibility to pay will start around the point you are contacted by the CSA.
If none of these options are suitable for you, you may wish to consider a
Consent Order, which is an official ruling made by a court. To arrange a Consent Order, both parents need to agree how much child maintenance will be paid and how often before going to court.
I can see from your post that you are worried that if you reduce the amount of maintenance you pay, your son''s mother may reduce the contact that you currently have with your son. Child maintenance and contact are not linked in law. Therefore difficulties over one should not disrupt arrangements for the other. If you have got any questions or concerns over contact you may wish to use the link previously mentioned regarding mediation to get in touch with organisations who are experts in this area.
In regards to the Government helping towards nursery fees for your son now he is 3, you may find the following link useful,
www.gov.uk/free-early-education.
We have a sorting out separation web-app on our website at
www.cmoptions.org/en/sortingoutseparation/index.asp 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, you can visit our website at
www.cmoptions.org.
William
