Hi xButterflyx
Thank you for your post, I am Sarah the
child maintenance Options consultant. In your post you have indicated that you have a family-based arrangement in place with your ex-partner. With you having a family-based arrangement in place you may wish to try to discuss and negotiate with your ex-partner on the amount of maintenance payable. With a family-based arrangement there are no strict rules or formulas to follow when calculating child maintenance. You and your ex-partner could agree that he helps with the payments towards the mortgage as part of your agreement, however, you would both need to agree to this. 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 father has a change in circumstances.
To help you and your son’s father continue your family-based arrangement in place, we have some useful tools and guides available to download from our website at
www.cmoptions.org/en/toolbox/index.asp.
If you would like an indication of how much maintenance you may receive if an application were made via the CSA, you can use our online calculator. This is on our website at
www.cmoptions.org/en/calculator. You may want to use this figure as a starting point for negotiations to help maintain your family-based arrangement.
You have mentioned in another post that you have spoken to the Child Support Agency (CSA) and you are going to wait until the house has been sorted before pursuing maintenance. I have included below the different options available to claim child maintenance if you feel you can not renegotiate your family-based arrangement with your ex-partner.
There are two schemes available via the CSA which are Direct Pay and Collect and Pay. Direct Pay is where the CSA would work out maintenance payments on a parent''s behalf and then leave it up to the parents to make the payments between themselves. Once they have calculated the maintenance amount, the CSA will not contact either parent again unless yours or your son’s father’s circumstances change or if they are told that he has missed or fallen behind with his payments. Under the CSA’s full collection service they calculate, collect and enforce payments on a parent''s behalf, as some people prefer the security and help of third party involvement. If an application were made via the CSA, your son’s father’s responsibility to pay will start from around the time CSA contacts him.
If you have got any questions about the CSA, or if you would like to set up maintenance using their service, you can contact them directly. You can also find information about how they work out child maintenance online at
www.gov.uk/child-maintenance.
If you feel that none of the above 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, you and your ex-partner would need to agree how much child maintenance will be paid and how often, before going to court. You can agree this either privately between yourselves, through a solicitor or a mediator. Once an agreement has been made, parents can then ask the court to approve and authorise the Consent Order. This usually happens when parents are going to court for other reasons, such as arranging a divorce or dividing their property or other assets.
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.
Sarah
