Child Maintenance
The Divorce Court no longer has jurisdiction over maintenance payments for children unless those payments have been agreed in writing between the parties and embodied in a "consent order". Child maintenance is now the exclusive province of the Child Support Agency. For further information Click here
This causes a number of problems for clients and their lawyers alike. The first is delay and it may be necessary for one party to apply to the Divorce Court for "interim spousal maintenance" to include a figure for the children pending a CSA Assessment.
The formula by which child maintenance was calculated is extremely complicated and despite a preponderance of computer programmes designed to calculate the appropriate figures, the CSA's assessment still could be problematic.
In order to try and address this the Government has brought in a "broad brush" approach of 15% of a Respondent's net income for one child, 20% for two children and 25% for three or more children.
This has proved not be the "neat and easy" solution the government hoped for. Although for some couples it can be a straightforward matter, many others find relying on the CSA to enforce a child support calculation against a payer not in regular full time paid employment remains slow, difficult and often impossible.