What is child maintenance?
Child maintenance, commonly referred to as child support, covers the child’s everyday living costs when parents divorce. This financial agreement is made between the separating couple to give a child the best start in life. It is a family-based arrangement that keeps both parents involved in the children’s lives.
Child maintenance is designed to provide regular, reliable financial support to meet the essential needs of the child. Financial support or child maintenance is provided by the parent, who is not living with the child, to the receiving parent with the main day-to-day care.
In some circumstances, the person receiving the child maintenance can be a legal guardian or grandparents. Parents who are unable to agree on the terms of the agreement can use child maintenance services to reach a suitable agreement.
It is important that the needs of the child are prioritized when sorting out child maintenance payments. It can be arranged privately between parents or through the Child Maintenance service.
Options for arranging child maintenance
Parents can benefit from a ‘family-based’ child maintenance agreement or other range of tools to sort out an amount to pay.
- Family-based agreement – This agreement will record the amount agreed by the parents in terms of child maintenance and how often payments will be made.
- Child Maintenance Service – Receiving parents and a paying parent can consult CMS to set up a payment arrangement.
Who can apply
The primary carer of the child is entitled to child maintenance and can apply for it. The parent who does not live with the child has to pay the child maintenance to the primary carer.
You could contact CMS to sort out child maintenance, however, CMS does not accept applications in the following cases
- The receiving parent or the child is living abroad
- The paying parent lives abroad and is not an employee of a UK-based employer, the civil service, or the armed forces
- A court order was made for child maintenance before 3 March 2003
- A court order instructing child maintenance was made after 3 March 2003 but has been in force for less than 12 months
- A written child maintenance arrangement was made before 5 April 1993
How Much Child Maintenance Should You Get?
There is no specific amount or percentage as it depends on the income of the parent as well as other factors. These factors taken into consideration include whether the parent is paying child maintenance of any other child.
Disclaimer:
The information in this blog is for general information purposes only and does not purport to be comprehensive or to provide legal advice. Whilst every effort is made to ensure the information and law is current as of the date of publication it should be stressed that, due to the passage of time, this does not necessarily reflect the present legal position. Connaught Law and authors accept no responsibility for loss that may arise from accessing or reliance on information contained in this blog. For formal advice on the current law please don’t hesitate to contact Connaught Law. Legal advice is only provided pursuant to a written agreement, identified as such, and signed by the client and by or on behalf of Connaught Law.
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