Child Maintenance

Child maintenance can be agreed informally between parties where possible, however if this cannot be agreed then you can contact the Child Maintenance Service to assist you with working out how much child maintenance should be paid, as well as asking them to help enforce it directly if need be. The Courts can also make Court Orders in regard to maintenance payments, although this is usually the case when the payment parent has a high income or lives abroad.

The Child Maintenance Service takes into account many factors such as how many children you make payments for, whether you are paying more than one parent, whether you get any benefits or state pension, for how long each week you have care of the children and what your income is before tax. All of these factors are taken into account in the calculation by the Child Maintenance Service.

The Child Maintenance Service offers a service whereby the necessary funds are taken directly from the paying parent’s payslip and, with the reduction of a small fee, deposited into the receiving parents account. This is done to ensure that payments are made regularly and on time, as well as being useful in situations where the parents may not be able to arrange between themselves any payments. This also prevents the paying parent from holding the maintenance payment to ransom in order to demand either more contact with the children or to pay less in maintenance.

Child Maintenance is usually dealt with by the Child Maintenance Service in the first instance. In some circumstances, further legal advice may be required and please feel free to contact us for more information if this applies in your case.