Family Matters - Child Maintenance

At Swinburne Maddison we have a highly experienced and well-respected family law team, which provides a full range of legal advice on what can often be sensitive and stressful matters including divorce and separation, domestic abuse, pre and post-nuptial agreements, financial and children related matters as well as custody proceedings.

Agreeing child maintenance payments is often difficult but is something that we are regularly asked to advise on.

In an ideal world, both parents would be able to sit round the table and come to an agreement that suits both parties, however this rarely happens for all sorts of reasons. To assist parents in determining the amount, the government has created an online calculator to provide guidance.

To arrive at a payment the following considerations are factored in:

– How many children will need to be paid for

-Whether the paying parent receives any benefits

-The paying parent’s weekly gross income (before Tax and National Insurance but after pension contributions);

-How many other children live in the household of the paying parent (excluding the child for whom maintenance is to be paid);

– How many nights per year the child stays with the paying parent

Child Maintenance Service (CMS)

When parents cannot agree the amount of child maintenance, the CMS is able to step in to calculate and arrange payment.

To do so it will find out the paying parent’s yearly gross income from information supplied by HM Revenue and Customs and consider the above factors.

Once a figure is arrived at the CMS can provide further assistance by arranging the payments and/ or, collecting payments from the paying parent and passing them to the other parent.

If this is the route you take there are fees attached to the services offered by the CMS. To use the calculator, visit www.gov.uk/calculate-your-childmaintenance.

If you need any further advice on child maintenance or any other child related matter, we understand and are well qualified to guide and advise you.