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Posted: 22 August 2007 at 5:17pm | IP Logged

Okay I'm due to pick up the boys from Nursery so apologies for poor typing.

Got an email from Brett asking me if I mind him paying £300 a month for maintenance.  This is half the maintenance I get now so oyu could imagine my reaction so let me explain.

At the moment he is posted abroad and gets lots of hardship and Cost of Living Allowances for living in the Tropics (I know, some hardship!). So on our separation he agreed to pay me £650 a month for the boys.

Their Daycare fees alone are £1006 a month so you can see that I'm not living the life of Raleigh which is why I chose to go back to work.  I wanted a better quality of life for myself and my children and was determined that they would never go without.

Anyway, he now emails to say that he may be posted back to London in October 2008.  I'm not stupid and knew this and had hinted (very strongly) that he could always kill two birds with one stone and get a 'hardship' posting in say, Afghanistan, Iraq or the Eastern Bloc.  Therefore, he gets oodles of money, plus they have 'decompression' leave which means every 3 weeks the FCO sends them back to the UK to 'decompress'.  Obviously, I would expect him to use this leave to see more of his sons instead of two weeks every 6 months, which basically is crap.

I was peed off that he suggested £300 a month, I told him nice terms to shove it.  But he says he'll look at the options I've laid down.

There's a pig flying by my window....

Ooooo I'm so peed off at him.  It's only taken him a year to sort this out.

Gotta go and pick up the rascals.

Thanks for listening to my hissyfit.

Posted: 22 August 2007 at 5:21pm | IP Logged

I think compression would be much better for him personally....

If he gets funny with the maintenance then you can always work out how much he would have to pay you if you went to the CSA or whatever it is called now.  Present him with that, I have no idea what it would be.  Tell him you won't except anything less than what you are entitled too then you can always go to your solicitor if you have to.

Posted: 22 August 2007 at 5:35pm | IP Logged

i agree,its a percentage of his wage for one child and then an extra quater fro each child after that or summat...

xxx

Posted: 22 August 2007 at 9:10pm | IP Logged

maintenance - grrrr. Definitely stick to your guns. I still go through CSA, though my ex recently tried to hound me into coming out, as they have just doubled his payment to me after revising his income etc. It's all a bit messy at mo, but I'm sticking with CSA - it gives me security - and I really need his money for the girls - they seem to need new things every week at mo.

Good luck with sorting this out.

xxx

Posted: 23 August 2007 at 9:01am | IP Logged

Im with csa as well..saves all the arguments..he has to deal with them..and i dont have to deal with him about it.  He does drop subtle hints of a private arrangement...and thats when I find theyve upped how much he has to pay.  He pulled a fast one on them..but I grassed him up cos i was annoyed and hes still paying back over 3k that he owes me.  So sometimes i get just over 300 pcm..its going to take a while before he can pay it all back.

Choice is yours chica, thing is though babes, he can just stop paying you if he was that much of a horrible bloke.  Have a look at csa see how much they will take..and take it from there.  Yes it might be less...buuuut it also means that you will not have to deal with him ever again and have maintenance arguements

Posted: 23 August 2007 at 9:08am | IP Logged

I agree with Steph - see where you would stand going through CSA.

Unfortunately, my ex still hassles me directly about it all. I'm at the stage at the moment of avoiding answering my phones if his number comes up, as he's desperately trying to get me to agree to a personal arrangement. I've told CSA he's putting pressure on me - they advised me to stick to my guns. It took well over two years to pin him down to pay anything - and he escaped having to pay arrears as the CSA mucked up and lost the original forms ( in fact made a series of cock-ups!). They're not the most efficient - although they seem to be better now than they used to be.

xxx

Posted: 23 August 2007 at 9:35am | IP Logged

Hiya,

Sorry to hear you're having a time of it...  hugs to you and your wee men!

I would advice going through CSA....  I havn't been contacted myself about them yet, but y'no the ex is like "I thought having to pay maintanance was for Dad's who wanted nothing to do with their children."  Apparently I'm making him look like a deadbeat Dad by going through CSA....

Sorry changing subject, but if you have any worries, contact them, even do a calculation online at he CSA website, even see your solicitor about things if things get messy.  It seems his best option to stay abroad anyhoo....  surely he has to take that into consideration.

Hugs again... if it isn't stressfull enough... boom something else happens, xxxxxxxx

Posted: 04 September 2007 at 10:41pm | IP Logged

Hiya,

The CSA aren't my favourite people but in your case I would definitely advise going through them. As someone has already said  there is a calculator online so you can see roughly how much they would ask him to pay if you were to go through them.

My hubby pays his ex and although we pay her direct we use the figure calculated through the CSA. We are on the old system whereas you would be put straight onto the new system so not entirely sure how much difference there is in the two other than you pay a lot more through the old system.

DH has 1 child with his ex and the CSA asked us to pay £600 a month, this included my wages even though I had just given up work they refused to reassess and said they would penalise my DH if I didn't supply the details they were requesting. We then made a private arrangement around this sum which we all agreed was the calculated amount before my wages were taken into consideration and that was £400 (although we actually pay £440 plus all of Sian's flights for her to visit which we make sure is a minimum of 3 times a year). I haven't returned to work since having Cerys - I can't even if I wanted to because if I do DH's ex will demand the rest of the money and plus with Child care we'd be paying out more. We haven't contacted the CSA about having another child either because it increased so much last time we spoke to them and that was to advise them that Cerys had been born.

One thing I will warn you about though. You said your ex gets a lot of extra money for being overseas. The CSA will only look at his basic wage and the outgoings for rent and bills etc before making their calculation. They will not consider any bonuses he get for being overseas at all, so if you use the calculator then you need to work it out with his basic wage and not with the extras he gets.

This is what we were advised anyway which is the whole reason we pushed for a posting to Germany because we get an overseas allowance added to the wages so we can at least have some kind of quality to our life as well. DH even turned down a promotion earlier this year because it meant being posted back to the UK, which would have been good for seeing more of Sian but we would have lost the overseas allowance and the pay increase wouldn't have made that much difference except that the CSA would have increased... if that makes sense. I know from your point of view this probably seems really unfair especially as he doesn't have any other children to consider other than your two boys.

Sorry this is so long but I really hope you manage to resolve it. £300 a month for two children I think is very unfair, especially as  you said he has the money to pay for them. When we thought the CSA was going to drop dramatically when we contacted them (we thought it would go to about £250 a month maybe less) we made arrangements with DH's ex to pay £300 a month which we felt we could afford and she said she could live off that. That all went pear shaped when the CSA paperwork arrived on the doorstep saying about the £600 a month and she accused us of trying to pull a fast one - which we genuinely weren't we really thought it was going to drop.

Posted: 05 September 2007 at 2:02am | IP Logged

Quick question.. why are the csa looking at your wages too?? she isn't your child, you shouldn't have to pay anything towards her maintenance.

I have been through this with the CSA.. Simon's ex is pushing us for maintenance, Simon isn't working, his a SAHD.. im the one working.. i rang them up to ask how much i should be paying her as im the one working.. they said nothing because its not my child... my wages would not be looked at.

 i would look in to it.. sounds like they are taking moneys from you that they shouldn't!!