Your Top Child Support Questions Answered

My ex and I have two children, he re- married after our divorce, and is now divorcing his wife (number 2) and has 2 children with her. He says that my child support has to be lowered since he now has to pay for the other two children, is this true?
dort - 2012

Not necessarily. It is possible that you will be paid less but this depends on a number of factors.

The first question is whether he pays maintenance to you through a Family-Arrangement, the court or Child Maintenance Service (CMS). If it is under a Family-Arrangement, then he can pay a lower amount. The most sensible thing is for you to try and agree a different arrangement if he is struggling to pay. However, when he was married he was still supporting four children and so, hopefully it will not have to change too much. If you are unable to come to an arrangement then you can ask the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) to calculate payments instead.

If there is a court order for your ex to pay child maintenance then your ex cannot just change the payments made. If he fails to pay the correct amount, then you can ask the court to enforce it. If, however, his child maintenance for his other two children is ordered by the court at the same time as his divorce then it might affect the payments he can make to you.

If the child maintenance is already paid through the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) then it is calculated on one of four rates. The rate which is applicable to your ex will depend on his net weekly income. If, for example, your ex earns more than £200 per week, then he will pay what is known as a "basic" rate.

On this rate, when paying maintenance for children, he would have been paying 20% of his net weekly income. Now that he is paying for 4 children, however, he will have to pay 25% of his net weekly income. Even though he will now have to pay a higher amount, the sum paid is normally split equally between the children. Therefore on this rate, if he earns £200 per week, he would be paying approximately £12.50 x 4 children instead of £20 x 2 children. Using this example, he is paying more than before but this is split between more children, resulting in a smaller payment per child.

Taking another example, if he earns less than £200 but more than £100 net per week, then he is likely to be on the "reduced rate". If on this rate, then for 2 children your ex would have had to pay a flat rate of £5 per week plus 35% of any income he earns over £100 per week but below £200 per week. Let us take an example net weekly income of £150. He earns £50 more than £100 of which he must pay 35% plus £5. This would result in a payment of £11.25 x 2 children. Now that he has to pay for 4 children, the rate to be paid is £5 plus 45% of his net earnings over £100. Taking the example net weekly income of £150 again, this would come to £6.88 x 4 children, resulting in a reduced amount of income.

If you can keep communicating with each other then you will be in a better position to understand whether or not he genuinely cannot pay.

I have never ever taken my ex partner to the CMS for payments as I have always supported my daughter myself, but times are very hard and I cannot survive on my wages alone. Would he be made to pay for the whole 16 years once my application was submitted or would I have to take him to court for back payment?
sillybilly - 2017

Unfortunately, if there has never been an child maintenance arrangement or agreement in place before now then you will not be able to claim back payment for the whole 16 years. Sometimes, when you first make an application for CMS, it can take a while for the arrangement to be put in place. In this circumstance, your ex partner will have to pay arrears back to the time that your application to the CMS was made but cannot go back any further than that. The sooner you get a claim in, the better so that you can continue to support your daughter as you always have.

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The only way you can try and claim back payment is if you did have a previous arrangement in place with your ex partner and he failed to pay. If this is the case and it was agreed that he was going to make payments to you and was lax about doing so, then you may be able to enforce the payment and back payment through the court. If you have evidence of an agreement, for example, letter, emails, messages etc then you will have a higher chance of winning a claim. What you will have to bear in mind is that going to court can be timely and expensive so you should seek the advice of a family law specialist before doing so.

You cannot just take your child out of the jurisdiction without permission. If you do, you be deemed to have abducted your child, even though you are the resident parent. The easiest way to get permission, if at all possible, is to seek it from your ex husband. If he gives permission then you and your daughter are able to leave. If he will not, then you will need to obtain leave from the court. The way to do this is to make an application for leave to remove your daughter from the jurisdiction. The court will usually grant permission if you have a carefully selected plan and it is in the best interests of your child. They will also take into account the wishes of your daughter i.e. the fact that she wants to move to Australia, the fact that she does not have regular contact with her father and the fact that you are taking her abroad for good reasons and not to take her away from her father. Other things to show the court are realistic proposals for your daughter to see her father if he should want to see her again and of course, if she wants to see him, where you plan to live, work and the schooling arrangements for your daughter etc.

The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) takes into account the net monthly income of the non-resident parent when calculating child maintenance. Income means earnings, wages, private pensions, bonuses, overtime pay, etc. Contractual maternity or paternity pay i.e. money agreed in you contract with your employer, tends to be classed as "income" whereas Statutory Maternity Pay, Statutory Paternity Pay and Statutory Adoption Pay, which is that which must be given to you by your employer by law.

This is the same for Maternity Allowance, which you normally get whilst pregnant and unemployed. It means that it is a benefit which is usually disregarded when classifying "income" and would therefore, in normal circumstances, would be disregarded by the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) when calculating child maintenance.

In any event, the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) when calculating income, takes into account the income of the non-resident partner rather than the household in most circumstances. That would be your partner's income, rather than your income and his together. It depends whether or not your benefit takes into account both your circumstances together.

Additionally, your partner should only be paying child maintenance for the 18 year old child if he is still classed as a child. This will be if either child benefit is still being received for your partner's child or if he is still in full-time education. If not, it is possible that he should not be paying at all.

You and your partner need to contact the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) to explain your situation and check that your partner is on the correct rate and paying the correct amount and that the correct "income" is being taken into account.

With regards to your new born baby, within 7 days of giving birth, your partner needs to contact the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) to let them know. This is because the change in circumstances could mean that your partner should start to pay less money. The sooner you notify of this, the better.

Your situation may be slightly different. ask a question below ↓ and our editorial team will reply with our advice.

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