What does child maintenance cover?
Many separated or divorced parents fall out over the issue of child maintenance and how much child support should be paid and what the child maintenance should cover. In this article family law solicitor Angelique Holm considers what child maintenance is for.
London child maintenance solicitors
If you need legal advice about your separation or divorce or have questions about child maintenance, reaching a financial settlement or agreeing child custody and contact then the expert divorce and family lawyers at OTS Solicitors can help you. Call the family law team on 0203 959 9123 or complete our online enquiry form to arrange a video call, Skype or telephone appointment.
What is child maintenance for?
Parents can have very different expectations of child maintenance and what it should cover. If you are a parent who is the main carer of a child it can be extremely frustrating to learn about the limits of what child maintenance covers. Equally if you are a parent who is being assessed to pay child maintenance, and whose ex-partner is on a higher income than you, then it can be galling to think that child maintenance isn’t calculated taking into account the receiving parent’s income or the child’s needs.
In the vast majority of family scenarios, when parents are separated the child maintenance is either agreed direct by the parents and paid on a voluntary basis or the child maintenance is paid after an assessment of child maintenance liability by the Child Maintenance Service.
When calculating how much child maintenance is payable the Child Maintenance Service don’t ask about the child‘s needs or the receiving parent’s personal or financial circumstances but instead focus entirely on the paying parent’s income. That is because the Child Maintenance Service don’t look at what the child maintenance is for (for example, to help pay the mortgage, gas, electricity and food bills as well as to pay for the school uniform, haircuts and all the other child related expenditure that parents incur). Instead, when the Child Maintenance Service calculates how much child maintenance is payable they use a strict mathematical formula that looks at:
- The paying parent’s income
- The paying parent’s pension contributions
- Whether the paying parent has overnight contact with the child and, if so, how much overnight contact takes place each year
- Whether the paying parent is paying child maintenance for any other children. This could be children in the same household or from a former relationship or marriage.
The child maintenance formula used by the Child Maintenance Service can, in some parent’s views, present very unfair results. For example:
- If two parents equally share the care of their children then no child support is payable by either parent to the other, even if one parent is on double or triple the income of the other parent
- If one parent looks after the children forty percent of the time then they will be liable to pay child maintenance even though their income is a lot lower or their reasonable outgoings are a lot more than the other parent who has care sixty percent of the time
- If a parent pays extra into his or her pension then they won't have to pay as much in child maintenance
- If a parent looks after children in their new household (for example, step children) this reduces the amount of child maintenance payable by the parent even though their child’s maintenance needs remain the same.
Is child maintenance meant to include spousal maintenance?
Child maintenance that’s assessed by the Child Maintenance Service doesn’t include any element of spousal maintenance. The government’s mathematical formula for child maintenance is purely based on the paying parent’s income and therefore the receiving parent’s personal or financial circumstances are not taken into account when calculating the amount of child support payable.
If you are married or were married to the parent who is paying child maintenance then you may be able to apply to the family court for spousal maintenance if your income from your earnings (if you have an earnings capacity) and child maintenance payments don’t meet your reasonable outgoings. When a family judge decides if spousal maintenance should be paid and for how long the judge doesn’t use a precise formula to calculate if spousal maintenance is payable. Instead the judge looks at a range of statutory factors and assesses needs.
If you were married to the parent of your child you will not be able to apply for spousal maintenance if:
- You have re-married
- You previously agreed or the court ordered that spousal maintenance would be payable on a time limited basis with provision to apply to court for an extension of the time for payment of spousal maintenance
- You agreed to a clean break financial court order meaning that you could not ask for spousal maintenance or other forms of financial support in future.
If you are a parent with an existing spousal maintenance order then either you can apply to increase the amount of spousal maintenance or your spouse or ex-spouse can apply to court to reduce or stop the spousal maintenance payments.
If you were not married and were living in a cohabiting relationship with the other parent then you can't apply to the family court for spousal maintenance, even if the child maintenance payable for your child doesn’t cover your reasonable outgoings. That is because the law limits the financial claims of unmarried partners in comparison to the financial claims that can be made by a husband, wife or civil partner. An unmarried partner has limited claims, whether or not they have children with an ex-partner as the current law is based on relationship status.
If you are an unmarried parent or a husband, wife or civil partner who can't apply for spousal maintenance for one of the reasons set out above then child maintenance solicitors say that there are other legal options, such as:
- An application for top up child maintenance – this type of application is possible if the Child Maintenance Service has assessed the paying parent to be liable to pay the maximum payable in child support under the Child Maintenance Service scheme rules
- A court application under the Children Act 1989 for financial provision for the child
- A court application for a school fees order
- A court application for help with covering the additional costs if your child suffers from a disability.
Child maintenance solicitors say that it is best to take specialist child support legal advice as the options aren’t always clear cut. For example, many parents don’t realise that they can ask the court for spousal maintenance or can apply to court for top up child support or an extension of time so spousal maintenance is payable for a longer period of time.
London child maintenance solicitors
If you need legal advice after your separation or divorce or have questions about how child maintenance is calculated or how child custody and contact affects the amount payable then the expert child maintenance lawyers at OTS Solicitors can help you. Call the family law team on 0203 959 9123 or complete our online enquiry form to arrange a video call, Skype or telephone appointment.