Parents have a legal and moral duty to contribute to their child’s upbringing whether they live with them or not.
Child maintenance covers how your child’s living costs will be paid when one of the parents does not live with the child. It’s made when you’ve separated from the other parent or if you’ve never been in a relationship.
Both parents are responsible for the costs of raising their children, even if they do not see them and you should have a child maintenance arrangement if your child is under 16 (or under 20 if they are still in full-time education).
Child maintenance can generally be arranged:
- privately between parents, if both parents agree
- through the Child Maintenance Service
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) is organised by the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) and can:
- work out an amount to pay
- arrange payments and take action if a parent does not pay
- sort out disagreements about parentage
- try to find the other parent if you do not know where they are
Child maintenance is an essential source of income for many lone-parent families, helping to lift 120,000 children out of poverty on average each year according to the DWP. It is important to make sure you apply to the CMS for assistance with child maintenance payments if you think there is a chance that you will experience problems with the other parent not complying with child maintenance payments or refusing to pay; until an application has been made, you cannot make the other parent pay child maintenance.
Unlike a family-based arrangement, which is not usually legally binding, using the CMS for an enforceable agreement means that the CMS can take action to get the child maintenance owed. If the Collect & Pay Service is being used, this will happen automatically. However, if the parents are paying child maintenance between themselves (Direct Pay) then the receiving parent needs to ask the CMS to take action.
There may be other ways of achieving financial support:
- For those who are married
- Spousal maintenance
- Sharing pensions or capital
- For those who have never been married
- Securing your entitlement out of jointly owned assets
- Lump sums to meet capital needs of the children
- Provision of housing
- For all
- Top up maintenance where the person paying maintenance is very high earning
- Help with educational costs and costs of disability
At Neale Turk LLP our family law team has a wide range of experience in family law and relationship issues and can efficiently guide you through all areas of family difficulties, including complex maintenance issues. We are members of Resolution, an organisation of 6,500 family lawyers and other professionals in England and Wales, who subscribe to a Code of Practice which is geared towards encouraging a constructive and non-confrontational approach in all family matters. Please feel free to contact us for a free initial appointment.
Louisa Callaghan
Family Law Team