Seeing the children and maintenance

[Whitegoddess]

Hi all,
I’m just wondering if anyone knows how often the kids Dad should see them? I spoke to a (removed by moderator) we could speak to a mediator if I have concerns about my ex drinking again? How do I go about this? Also we weren’t married but lived together for (removed by moderator) years and I hear it’s expensive to go to court and try and get some money for the fact I have paid rent to his (removed by moderator) for all those years! ( We built (removed by moderator))
I really don’t want to talk to him as the break up is still so fresh! I feel I should go through the csa and do things properly in regards to maintenance. I don’t see the need to speak to him! Apparently he has been left with nothing!!

[Lifebegins]

Hi Whitegoddess

I haven’t got experience with an ex drinking so not the best person to give advice on that but child contact can all be done via 3rd party. I am no contact and have not had any direct contact with my ex and it’s been quite a while since I left.

Don’t wait to go to Child Maintenance Services. In the hope of trying not to inflame the situation further, I tried to arrange voluntary agreement via solicitor and mediation (mediation was a complete waste of time and money for me) but a very long time after I left, still no maintenance so I went to CMS and payments started within (removed by moderator) weeks. I will never get the money back from before as maintenance only starts from when you claim. There is a calculator on the gov.uk website and if you advise of domestic abuse, they may waive the £20 fee and accept your application straight away (I think they normally expect you to negotiate a voluntary arrangement before you go to them but obviously that’s rarely possible with DA).

Hope that helps xx

[Watersprite]

I agree CMS every time it is a hassle but they will deal with him for you. We have no contact and court orders to protect us. Mine tried every trick in the book and it was yet more games from him but they enforced I got the money he owed in dribs and drabs CMS used court etc and he exerted control every step but same old same old with abusers. It was exhausting and time consuming and irritating but good to get kids what they should have. Stay strong x

[Hazlenut]

Hey, I would 100% say use CMS, they waive the £20 fee when there is a history of domestic abuse. They take awhile to actually get a payment but you’ll feel better once you see the arrears start to mount up and then they start collection action. As for seeing the kids, it’s no contact here and the kids are settled after relocating so I see no reason to disrupt them, although he has applied for contact so cafcass now involved. Non molestation order still in place though so I’m not panicking. Best wishes

[iliketea]

Definitely CMS and also make sure you go on the they sort out getting the payment from him, you lose a bit but it is so worth it. There’s a thing where they can apply to vary the order and not provide evidence, which means that they can just call the CMS and say they can’t afford to pay it and the CMS go “Ok no problem” then notify you about it and give YOU 16 days to provide the evidence to say he does have to pay, its a broken system But to avoid this, if you can get it from source, based on a percentage of his salary, if you werent married it is the only way to do it, and get him to legally pay. You’ll pay a lot on solicitors to get it sorted out and it will be another reason he’ll try economic abuse on you as its the only way left he can get at you, through the children. Look up Surviving Economic Abuse – they have a lot of good information about this. xx

[cakepops]

The issues of contact, child maintenance and finances are treated entirely separately.

I don’t know how financial separation works in the situation you describe. You might be best to get an initial appointment with a solicitor to discuss whether your payments towards the house would mean you have a stake in the equity. However, I would expect this is unlikely unless the house value has risen very significantly, as you would be deemed to have been saving on paying rent commercially instead.

For child maintenance go via CMS. If he is self employed or a ltd company director there are sadly ways to wriggle out of paying much. If he’s employed its much easier.

With regards to child contact, it depends what the current set-up has been. If he has been having care of the children while you were together and you raised no concerns about his drinking it will be harder to raise this as a concern now. If the issue is that his drinking has restarted or has increased then this will be easier to raise as an issue. Assuming you currently have residential care of the children you can make a formal offer of contact via a solicitor (or yourself by email if you prefer). Mediation isn’t recommended for dv situations. If it does end up going to court you may be eligible for legal aid.

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