ex wife wants more money following court order

A question about : ex wife wants more money following court order

My husband is paying a significant anount of maintence for his 13 year old child, agreed in a court order in what was a very generous settlement for his ex wife. He also supports 3 other children financially through university agreed in a solicitor letter. He wanted to do right for all his children
His ex wife now wants more money now the court order is over 12 months old, which she will get if she applies through the child maintenance service.
We based our mortgage and budget on all the amounts agreed in the court order, to pay the extra maintenance will have a big impact. It also seems unfair that what was agreed in court as fair and reasonable based on both parents incomes can now be over ruled because his ex wife has found away to get more.
Both parents are high earners, the same profession and on similar imcomes

Will the the child maintenance service take into account the over Ј1000 per month he gives the three eldest children?
His son also has a bedroom here but never stays as he lives less than half a mile from our home, we deliberately chose to live close so he could drop in , so that also appears to go against us
Any suggestions please?

Best answers:

• You wont like the answer I am afraid...
  Your husbands ex wife can now go to the CSA if the court order is over 12 months old. She will get a % based on your husbands gross pay which is sourced directly from HMRC.
  Any money that your husband pays to support children not eligible for child support is not taken into consideration.
  Have you any children living in your household? If so, a small discount will be applied to take them into consideration.
• thanks for the reply, in that case we may have to reduce the amount we pay to the older children, there is only so much money to go round and at the moment paying the current level of maintenance and giving the older children money ,his ex wife already has a higher household income. so perhaps she could support her older children financially too
• If the ex goes via the csa there will be no money due to the adult children at uni. I don't understand why he pays for the adult children, fair enough give what you can afford but the children could do as many have before and support themselves, I had no parental monetary support during uni and budgeted and worked part time.
• How very judgemental some people are, thank you to those who tried to see a more balanced view.
  My husband went to court because his ex wife wanted everything, he didnt pay csa rate because his wife settled for less in return for the house and a bigger portion of his pension.
  All of the older children are away at university and she gives them no finacial support because "she cant afford it".
  Now she wants more money but he wont be able to claim back a portion of the house or his pension I presume.
  Its called having your cake and eating it
  plenty of students get no help at all from any parents, but he wanted to be supportive to all his children. His eldest child is on his 6th year at university. He pays each of them a significant amount of money each month
  It is a shame that when you go on a forum asking for advice you get presumptions and crticism, but thank you once again to those who tried to help
• It certainly is a failing in the system, unfortunately, one he didn't know about at the time and clearly didn't get advice on.
  Reducing his support to his older children is the way to go, but I would try to see about doing this gradually and discussing it with them. The 24 yo (I assume) should be understanding of the situation and appreciate that they can't take for granted the amount that they are still recieving from their father.
• Perhaps I am missing something here...
  Surely letting the ex-wife have an unusually large share of the house and pension pot was a benefit for her, while child maintenance is for his youngest daughter. So an agreement to pay reduced child maintenance in return for capital assets could hardly have been legitimate.
  Anyway, the decision to involve the CSA means that the father of the student children will have less money than expected, while their mother will have more. That means that a larger share of their support will have to be paid by their mother.
  One minor point: I understand that the CSA now charge for their 'service'. Rather than paying this charge, it would be far more sensible to use their formula; work out the amount that they would assess, and simply pay it directly.
• I remember my univeristy days - the biggest scammers were the adult children of divorced parents. They would sign up under the poorest parent, get all the support, and receive under-the-table cash from the rucher parent.
  Obviously that has nothing to do with your situation... but I was reminded of it bizarrely.
  Anyway. If I understand you, the following situation is the case:
  - Your husband contributes an amount towards the youngest child which is below the CSA rate. (Otherwise the mother would have no purpose in calling in CSA).
  - However, he contributes more to the adult children, to a total amount greater than CSA. (Otherwise you wouldn't be calling it generous).
  - Remember people may get a bit confused by those two previous points, reconciling 'generous' and 'less than CSA'.
  - Don't be too angry at the mother for asking for more money. She is getting less than she 'should' for the minor child.
  - However, the solution of spending slightly less on the adult children to increase the contribution to the minor child is relatively elegant, if a bit tough on the adult children (give them some forward notice to adjust budgets!). The natural thing to do would be to tell them to ask their mother for more support if needed, but that probably just opens a whole load of disputes.
  - I will note that parental funding at university is very valuable, especially in these days where the costs (esp. rent and fees) are shot through the roof.
  - Only you and your husband know if the total amount you pay is fair to your own budget.
  Quote:
• I think that tyhe adult children at uni will have to start supporting themselves with any grants they are entitled to (as a previous poster has said, they are probably entitled to quite a bit) and get a part time job if they still need more. Of course, if your husband can afford to give any extra after his CSA obligation then thats a benefit for them.
• Just a suggestion here but hope it is practical and may well be affected by the relationship the siblings have with one another.
  The eldest must be near completion of their course so continue to fund that and whatever CSA decide the youngest is due. As for the middle 2, suggest they go the loan route for whatever shortfall there will be and that he will help with the repayment & increase their help as the eldest no longer needs help. Providing they have not be brainwashed into how awful their father is, they are intelligent people, and should understand the reasons and necessity for his actions
• Thank you for all your comments, I think as other posters have said that court order system is flawed and my husband probably wasnt fully advised.
  The csa rate is 15%for is youngest child.
  In total my husband gives 30% of his salary away to all his children.his ex wife gets 10% and the other 3 university children 20 % between them. This is what they said they needed. We simply can not afford any more
  His children have students loans but no grants as there mother is a high earner, but cant afford to help. She encourages them to have high expectations.
  At the time of the divorce there was alot of emotional manipulation going on by the children.
  I do think my husband has lost out, my one light at the end of the tunnel is there is only one child she can now use and that wont last forever, mean while he can hold his head up as having done right for his children