Child Maintenance as per Consent Order

Hello

My son''s maintenance was agreed and included in our Consent Order. The CSA have never been involved.

The other day I dug out the consent order to check to seen when ex is to stop paying for our child but it doesn''t specify a date or age of the child.

Ex has already started asking when does child support finish and I have said when full time education finishes? I''m assuming this is correct?

Would full time education include university?

Many thanks

Unfortunately it could be interpreted to finish when secondary education or higher education is completed and the only way to know for sure would be to ask a judge to clarify.

Alternatively you could try to reach a family based agreement between yourselves

If you are going to take the trouble of asking a judge to clarify this try and have included in your order there univerty education and allow for a gap year I managed to get this included in mine using mediation services.

I really did not see why my children''s education should be thwarted because there parents were no longer married.

In saying this even if you can''t obtain this it would not prevent a child making there own application to a court for maintenance in there own name if the do go on to uni

Thanks for the responses.

I''m happy to know that he will be covered till he has at least finished his A levels.

Ex has own company and I''ve always dreaded the risk of the courts turning any application away and insisting we go through the CSA.

I did have to go to court once when ex reduced maintenance. I was lucky - I took copies of the last three years Company Accounts (from Companies House) - the judge awarded the maintenance based on the declared income plus the regular 35K per year in dividends.

When is the original consent order dated? There is no point in asking a judge to clarify until one of the children is in or about to go to higher education because normally the court has no jurisdiction to make an order for child maintenance or a variation. Also when the consent order was dated on or after 3rd March 2003 either parent can apply to the Child Maintenance Service and the consent order will cease to have any effect.

Children over 18 in higher education can make their own application for maintenance from separated parents although not when "immediately before he reached the age of sixteen, a periodical payments order was in force with respect to him." - Schedule 1, Children Act 1989.

Consent order approved 2002 and then ex applied to have it varied in 2004. Then ex applied again in 2007 - wanted a reduction. I did a counter claim which was heard at the same time and got child support increased.

So when our child goes to Uni, if ex doesn''t want to help out voluntarily, is the child still able to apply for parental support in his own right?

Yes a child can make their own application ... It will be very hard for them to do so but they can make an application to the court for maintenance.