Child Maintenance/Child Support

Many are unsure as to what child maintenance covers; it is defined by the government as being the ‘financial support towards your child’s everyday living costs when you’ve separated from the other parent’. Should you have a good relationship with the other parent, you may be able to privately agree a ‘family-based arrangement’ between yourselves. If this is not possible, you will need to get the Child Maintenance Service involved. We Are Manchester Child Support Solicitors If you are worried about paying or receiving child support or need help with reaching a financial settlement after your separation or divorce then the Manchester divorce and child support solicitors at Evolve Family Law in Whitefield can help you. Contact us today. Child support and shared care of the children If you have a shared parenting arrangement (the child spends the same number of nights with each parent), neither of you is obliged to pay child maintenance, even if one parent has a higher income or fewer outgoings. Have a look at our blog who pays child maintenance when you share custody for more information. What does child maintenance cover? At its simplest, child maintenance is about providing your child with the food, clothes and home that they need to thrive and enjoy the best possible start in life. Ultimately, it is up to the parent with primary care responsibilities as to how the money is spent. Child support is the legal minimum that a parent must contribute to the upbringing of their child, although they can certainly pay more should they wish. Grounds to challenge a child support assessment There are four grounds to apply for variation of child maintenance payments which are: Assets over £65,000; Income not taken into account; Diversion of income; Lifestyle inconsistent with declared income   You can read more about challenging child support in our blog ‘How To Vary Child Maintenance Payments‘.   Who is a child for child support? Child maintenance covers a child under the age of 16, and those aged 16-19 who are in full-time education and have never been married or in a civil partnership.   What is not covered by child support? As part of any child maintenance obligations under Child Maintenance Service rules, a parent is not expected to financially support any step-children. Nor is a parent obliged to contribute to private school fees. If these are a concern, the court can intervene separately if a court application is made by a parent as those decisions will not fall under the umbrella of child maintenance. When there are financial constraints, child maintenance will always be prioritised over school fees. [related_posts] How is child maintenance calculated? When a family based-agreement cannot be reached, it is up to the Child Maintenance Service to determine the size of child support payment. The agency does so by following a set method and mathematical formula.   HMRC will provide the Child Maintenance Service with the paying parent’s gross income and establish whether or not they are receiving any benefits. Any pensin scheme payments are also taken into account. Additional considerations include whether or not the paying parent needs to financially support any other children, and how many nights the child is expected to spend with them. This information then affects the rate applied to give the final payment. This assessed child maintenance figure is broken down into a weekly amount.   Should the paying parent’s gross income exceed £156,000, the court can order additional child maintenance to be paid in accordance with the child’s needs. Online calculators are available which use the CMS methodology to provide you with a rough indication of the required amount of child maintenance.   What is the Child Maintenance Service? The Child Maintenance Service is a government agency who oversees the payment of child maintenance, assessing how much an individual needs to pay and enforcing that decision if they don’t meet their payments. The agency reviews the level of payment on an annual basis and whenever they’re notified about a significant change in the paying parent’s circumstances. The Child Maintenance Service can also assist with locating an absent parent and has procedures in place where parentage is disputed.

In an ideal world, parents will agree on an the appropriate amount of child maintenance using the child support agency calculation prepared by their divorce solicitor or the online calculator on the child support agency website. Many parents use the child maintenance figures as a rough guide as to how much child maintenance should be paid recognising ,for example, that if one parent agrees to pay for all the children’s clothes, haircuts  and school trips then expecting them to pay the full amount of a child maintenance calculation may not be appropriate. In other family situations a parent will recognise that it is fair that he or she pays a bit more than the child maintenance calculation to help pay for extras such as ballet or riding lessons. Child maintenance payments should be reconsidered if incomes and parenting arrangements change. Sadly we don’t all live in an ideal world and some parents have to apply to the child support agency for an assessment of how much child maintenance should be paid. That is either because they can't reach an agreement on how much child support should be paid or payments aren’t being made. What is child maintenance based on? As a divorce solicitor I have heard parents express shock at the amount of a child support agency child maintenance assessment. Sometimes that is because the parent hasn’t appreciated that child maintenance is based on: The payer’s gross income; The number of children that the payer pays child maintenance for; The number of overnight  contact visits the payer has with the children; The number of other children living in the payer’s household. When calculating child maintenance the children’s needs and the payee and payer’s household bills aren’t taken into account in the child support agency calculation. On other occasions the shock at the child support agency child maintenance figure is based on a parent’s knowledge of their partner’s income and lifestyle. If a parent doesn’t think that a child support agency child maintenance assessment is right then they should consider: Asking the child support agency for a revision or mandatory reconsideration if they think the child support agency got something wrong such as the payer’s income or the number of overnight contact visits; Asking the child support agency for a variation; Appealing against the child support agency assessment; If parents are or were married (and there is no financial clean break order in place) applying to court for spousal maintenance. This may be an option if the amount of the child support agency child maintenance payments combined with the household’s other income or potential earnings won't meet basic needs and bills. Grounds to vary a child support agency child maintenance calculation   There are four potential grounds to apply for a variation of a child support agency child maintenance assessment: Assets over £65,000 – the payer’s home isn’t treated as an asset. The value of investments , savings and any equity in a second home would be relevant; Income not taken into account – usually this ground is used if a payer can set their own income because they are a company director and can declare dividends or use a directors loan account to fund their outgoings; Diversion of income – this ground can be relevant where a payer owns their own company and employs a new partner or family members at an inflated salary in order to divert their own income; Lifestyle inconsistent with declared income – this ground can be relevant if , for example, an income of £30,000 has been declared but the payer’s mortgage payments alone are believed to amount to £24,000 per year. This ground won't work if the payer is financing his lifestyle from gifts from his parents or on credit cards. [related_posts] Do I need legal advice to apply for a change to child maintenance? You don’t have to get legal advice from a divorce solicitor in order to apply for a child support agency variation but sometimes it helps to take advice on your options. It is important that you take legal advice if you haven’t reached a financial settlement with your ex-spouse or you have an ongoing spousal maintenance order. That is because there are potentially court based spousal maintenance options and other types of court order that may encourage the payer to start making reasonable child support payments. Court options can be used in combination with a variation application to the child support agency or as a stand-alone application. If you need legal assistance with a change to child maintenance please contact us today,

When separated parents are juggling full time jobs with child care it is common for parents to agree a shared care parenting regime for their children. Shared care may help with the daily battle of getting to work on time or getting one child to a ballet lesson and another to a football match on a Saturday but who pays child maintenance when you share the care of your children? That is a question you should ask before you agree childcare arrangements and the amount of child support. We are Manchester divorce solicitors If you are separating or divorcing and need legal help with child support or child custody then our expert divorce lawyers can help you. Contact us today. Child support and child care In my experience as a Manchester divorce solicitor some parents pay too much in child maintenance and others don’t pay enough. It is important to get the balance right. It can be hard to agree on the right level of child maintenance once a shared care arrangement is in place or once the first child maintenance payment has been made. That’s why it is important to get legal advice from a solicitor before plans are drawn up. What is ‘shared care’ of children? Shared care is as individual as families. It is a question of what works for a particular family. I have seen some families agree on: Sharing an au pair or nanny so that the child care support moves with the children to provide continuity; A week on, week off schedule so the children spend a week with each parent; A day on, day off schedule so the children never spend more than a day away from each parent, save for holidays. I am not advocating those shared care arrangements but for some families they work better than the more traditional 3 day / 4 day split one week and then swapping the days on the second week. What shared care arrangement works depends on distances between family homes, new relationships and step children and the practicalities of managing work and child care commitments combined with the daily commute and school run. Shared care doesn’t mean that the children have to spend exactly half their week with each parent. In some families one parent will look after the children during the week and the other parent at the weekend. You may question why one parent gets all the ‘quality weekend’ time with the children but some parents are only able to get weekend work or want stability for the children during the school week. Experience as a Manchester divorce solicitor has shown that any type of shared care arrangement can be good for children provided their parents are happy with the arrangements and commit to co-parenting. Who pays child maintenance when parenting of children is shared? If you carry out a poll of parents on the question who pays child maintenance when parenting of children is shared? the vast majority of parents assume that the parent who earns more than the other will pay child maintenance. That’s not right as under complicated child maintenance law rules if both parents equally share the care of their children neither parent will pay child maintenance to the other parent. It has long been thought that if one parent gets the child benefit money then their entitlement to the child benefit payment automatically means that they are the parent who is entitled to ask for child maintenance. One father recently challenged that idea and took his case to a child maintenance tribunal. The tribunal decided that: The day to day care provided by each parent has to be evaluated. The evaluation isn’t just counting nights that the children stay with each parent but looking at tasks and responsibilities; If there is equal responsibility for the day to day care of the children then no child maintenance is payable , even if one parent earns a lot more than the other parent; Child maintenance is only payable if one of the parents is classed under child maintenance rules as the ‘non-resident parent, or in other words, there isn’t an equal shared care arrangement. This means that the other parent is classed under child maintenance rules as the ’parent with care’; If there is no evidence to the contrary on shared care then if the person applying for child support receives the child benefit payments it is assumed that they are the ‘parent with care’. This assumption isn’t relevant if both parents equally share the care of the children. What difference does shared care make to child maintenance? If you share the care of your children then it can make the difference between receiving hundreds of pounds each month for your children in child support and receiving no child maintenance at all. That can mean the difference between being able to afford to work part time and having to work overtime to pay household bills. For parents who are paying child maintenance on top of the costs of looking after their child for half the week the child support payments can mean the difference between being able to afford a house near to a child’s school or only being able to buy a house that is too far away to be able to have the child to stay mid-week and get them to school the next day. That is why it is so important that both parents know where they stand on shared care and child maintenance before agreeing on a parenting regime and child maintenance. Sorting out family finances is similar to juggling shared child care with the daily commute and new relationships. There has to be joined up thinking into: What type of child care arrangement meet your child’s needs? Some children cope better than others with an equal shared care arrangement. How do the practicalities of commute and work commitments impact on sharing the child care? Will one parent be paying spousal maintenance to the other parent and, if so, how long for? Will one parent be receiving more than half of the equity in the family home to rehouse themselves as they earn less than the other parent? If you do share the care of the children and child support isn’t paid how will this impact on the finances of both parents?   With specialist legal advice from a Manchester divorce solicitor on your best divorce and financial options many parents can agree a financial settlement that meets both family’s needs and receive legal protection with a financial court order. [related_posts] What happens if we stop or start sharing the care of the children? If, for whatever reason, you stop or start sharing the care of your children then child maintenance could either stop or start. That is because in most situations you can apply to the child maintenance service for child support at any stage. If child care arrangements change then a parent may be able to ask the child maintenance service to either stop the requirement to pay child support or to vary the amount of child maintenance. That’s why, when looking at your housing options and finances on separation, it is as well to factor in possible changes in child support in future. Manchester & Cheshire based Evolve Family Law solicitors are approachable and friendly, providing pragmatic expert divorce, children and financial settlement solutions.

The Child Maintenance Service, the government organisation tasked with assessing and administering the statutory child support regime, frequently gets bad press for its bureaucracy and the intricacy of its rules and regulations surrounding the payment and enforcement of child support. A recent Court decision has hit the headlines because the Court of Appeal has said that a father’s sole source of income can't be classed as earnings upon which to calculate how much child support should be paid. The first two child support tribunals took the approach that if someone lives off an income then it can be viewed as ‘’income’’ but on an appeal by the father and by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions the Court of Appeal disagreed. You may question when income isn’t ‘’income’’ but the Court of Appeal decided that income for child support purposes should be considered in light of rulings on what is classed as income for tax purposes. In this family, the father derived his entire income from professional gambling, namely bets on the horses and cards. Under income tax rules and regulations earnings from gambling are not treated as self-employed taxable income even if they are a person’s only source of financial support. The Court ruled that the definition of earnings to assess liability for child support is the same as assessing eligibility for welfare benefits or liability to pay income tax. The Court ruling may make logical sense to the Department of Work and Pensions but where does it leave the parent who requires child support for their children when the other parent is earning a living from gambling or another non-taxed source? Critics have long argued that assessing child support using a statutory rigid scheme leads to these types of anomalies and that these situations were avoided when the Court had the power to order child maintenance based on what a judge thought was the right amount to meet the child’s needs. With any process there are always winners and losers and for some the Child Maintenance Service has simplified the child support process and made the collection of child support more straightforward, taking the worry out of relying on an ex-partner for child maintenance. For others, particularly where their former partner or spouse is self-employed or lives a lifestyle that doesn’t seem consistent with their taxable income the child support regime and government agency has made life more complicated than relying on the old Court system for assessing child support. [related_posts] You may think that there are very few professional gamblers so the Court of Appeal decision won't affect many children. However the rules do apply to other scenarios such as the investor living off capital gains rather than dividend income or the more common situation of a self-employed person’s reported income not appearing to reflect the reality of their daily expenditure. As a children lawyer this case emphasises the importance of getting expert legal advice when parents separate and to not sort out financial matters on a piecemeal basis. Often a husband or wife will want to agree on a split of the proceeds of sale of their house so that they can each rehouse themselves leaving issues such as spousal maintenance or child support to be agreed later on. That can lead one parent as the financial winner and the other as the financial loser if, as a result of the child support rules and regulations, the child support payments are assessed at a lot lower figure than was anticipated when committing to the new house. As frustrating as it is to wait and sort out all financial matters together the gamble of dealing with child support in isolation just isn’t worth it. For joined up advice on children law and child support please call me on +44 (0) 1477 464020 or email me at louise@evolvefamilylaw.co.uk

Pilot faces a £600,000 payment and a freezing order after losing his Court battle over the enforcement of a family Court order. Whenever a divorcing couple end up in Court with a family judge making the decision on how their assets should be divided or how much spousal maintenance and child support should be paid there is always a risk that either the husband or wife or both of them may be very unhappy with the outcome of the Court proceedings and their Court Order. The dissatisfaction with a family Court judgement and financial order can lead to appeals against the decision or to orders being deliberately flouted in the hope that an ex-husband or wife won't want to launch further Court proceedings to enforce the original financial Court order. Sometimes financial Court proceedings can take on a life of their own. The media has recently highlighted the case of Richard Wilmot and his ex-wife Viki Maughan who have been engaged in a 16 year battle over payment of child support, with paternity of the youngest child being in dispute despite DNA testing. The Court has ruled that just shy of £600,000 should be paid to the ex-wife, consisting of child support arrears and legal costs. Importantly the Court has also made a freezing order freezing property, money in bank accounts as well as pension and insurance monies. The Court decision to freeze assets shows just how far family judges are prepared to go to make sure that Court orders are complied with. A read of the Court judgement emphasises just how exasperated the judge was by the ‘’utter folly’’ of the ex-husband’s actions resulting in him being ordered to pay nearly £600,000 when the child support arrears only amounted to about £115,000 with the rest of the monies being legal costs and the costs of specialists employed by the ex-wife to trace and recover the money. The case highlights the financial and emotional costs of engaging in a long drawn out Court battle but, perhaps more importantly, shows the long arm of the law, in this case over a 16 year period to enforce the payment of child support . [related_posts] In my view this unhappy Court saga reveals why it is so vital to try and reach an out of Court financial settlement that both an ex-husband and ex-wife can live with to avoid enforcement Court litigation and costs. That isn’t always possible. If a financial Court order has to be made by a judge it is important to take legal advice on appeal options and, if necessary, enforcement options to avoid the costs of the Court proceedings getting out of hand and ultimately, as in the case of Mr Wilmot, dwarfing the amount in dispute between husband and wife. If you need help with the terms of a financial settlement or a Court order please contact us.