Child Support

(The weekly series - Pocket Money - where I explain financial basics in fewer than 200 words. Feel free to make suggestions!)

Child support is an arrangement to financially support a child following separation or divorce. The parent who doesn’t live with the child full time is generally required to make regular payments to the child’s main carer.  

In the UK, Child Maintenance Service (CMS) administers child support. A ‘family-based arrangement’ where the parents reach their own private agreement is encouraged as a first step but either parent can apply to the CMS to calculate and enforce payments. Enforcement can include deducting payments directly from wages (through a ‘deduction from earnings order’), seizing assets or pursuing court action. 

The payments are calculated primarily on the paying parent’s gross weekly income, the number of children to support and how many nights the child spends with each parent. Child support continues until the child turns 16, or 20 if they remain in full-time education up to A-level standard.

Child support is separate from any divorce settlement and is not negotiated through solicitors in the same way that property or assets are. They are also not connected to contact arrangements which means they can’t be withheld if access is being denied and access can’t be denied because payments are being withheld.

Love Eleanor. xxx