Fair?

Lostboy67 wrote:

If she is claiming the Child Benefit, it would make sense to transfer it to you, as it stands my understanding is that since she earns over 60k it will all be clawed back. If you were to claim since your salary is under 50k it would not be clawed back. This does assume that there is a certain level of pragmatic thinking.

LB

Is this the case? I thought if either parent earned over 60K, even if they are separated / divorced, it would get clawed back. Is there a .gov.uk link that makes this clearer?

It is based on whether there is a higher rate taxpayer in the household and as you are divorced you would get it. However, this would make you the official parent with care so she may well resist such a move - it would mean that she would then have to pay child support to you.

I also agree that you need to take care as she could easily employ a nanny and cover your two days a week that way.

Best wishes,
Sadie

Cake and eat it and your desert and a magnum of champagne to wash it all down with with your ex misus.
Now you might be a terribly civilsed pc type of guy but the phrase shes muggin you off tell her bollox springs to uneducated neanderthal mind.
Shes earns £90k you earn £40k
She makes sure shes resident parent by a whole one night a week so you have to pay it child maintenance.
You pay all other costs associated with the kid 3/7ths of the time
She wants not just cm off you but topped up to £700 a month
She wants 70% OF HOUSE EQUITY
and your the unreasonable one if you refuse
No its not fair and what you need to remember is this deal will remain in place for what seems an interminable amount of time.
If you cave in now and go for this horrifically lopsided deal you will resent .because I eould suspect yhis woman has balls of steel and if you ever think shell let you off any of it if you sign up for this youve got no chance.
The trouble you have is the minute you go for 50% house equity she will play the mummy card and go for you being non resident father with every other weekend and one tea time.because your ex as always is far more interested in the money that she will get out the divorce rather than her ex husband having a relationship thats moresustainable with the kid with a fair share of assets.
£40k a year after tax and paying her another £750 a month out of it aint enough to live on anyway with a kid
All the best
Hrh x

After a dig around the Child Benefit info, I found this:

"The person your child lives with has an income of more than £50,000

If you get Child Benefit for a child who lives with someone else, that person may be liable to the High Income Child Benefit charge. But this is only if all of the following apply:
• you give the other person contributions towards the child''s upkeep
• what you contribute is worth at least as much as the Child Benefit you get for the child
• both you and your partner have an individual income below £50,000
• the other person has an individual income of more than £50,000"

so if the lower earning parent claims child benefit, AND the lower earning parent is paying CM to the higher earning parent, then the CB would be clawed back from the higher earning parent, even though they are separated / divorced.

My understanding was the priority was given to the resident parent when it came to housing needs. She will certainly have enough and also has some redundancy money she received after we split (she now has a new job), which is not being counted as part of the asset split either.

As it stands I won''t have any chance of moving out of my studio flat on my own. Luckily I have a new partner so there is some hope of affording something better. But I do need to revise the agreement.

The main thing I consider in this is the nursery costs. If we had 50/50 custody it would be expected that we both pay towards this, and it had cost £1430/month until this month. It reduces to £1200/month so this should help. I know she is asking too much and earns more, but to be fair this is a large cost for one person to bear on top of the other costs, were I to only pay the CSA amount. But yes, what I am paying is too much.

No its £41K a year BEFORE tax.

She is getting 50% of the house we are selling (only around £14K each), and 70% of the cash (total £45K, so £31.5K). Plus she has around £15K or more left over in the redundancy money. I''ll end up with around £25K and she''ll end up with around £60K. I''m going backwards at the moment and can''t see any way to save, she''s likely saving a grand a month. Crazy.

Time for us both to wake up.

One comment I would make is that why isn''t her redundancy money part of the pot? It certainly should be! Think of it this way.. if you had the redundancy money she would expect a share.

It is a large cost for one person BUT she earns more than double you do seems to be getting the lions share of your assets too.

You need to start putting your foot down and saying no otherwise she will keep coming back for more.

I really think you need to seriously look at this. If you continue to pay the amount that you are then you are setting a president.

It IS NOT affordable for you to continue with this stance. You need somewhere for you to live and for you to have your son if you have 50/50 care. Especially the case as he gets older.

You say that you have met someone new and things financially will be better. This may be the case however if I was your new partner I would be really aggrieved if my wage was having to support both of us whilst all your wage was going to your ex especially as they don''t need it!