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If I split with the mother of my unborn child, my life will be over

May 30, 2013

when I was 19 me and my girlfriend were nearing the end of our relationship but she was still in love with me. a few weeks later shes pregnant… I am now 22 with a lovely 3 year old but my current girlfriend has also fallen pregnant whilst on contraceptive. shes currently 26 weeks and were starting to really argue and I have a gut feeling that were not going to last coupled with the fact she tells me to leave in every argument we have but thats because she knows I couldn’t afford two sets of CSA. What do I do?

I feel so hopeless and ive never been unsafe during sex so its not carelessness. I feel like if we split up then my life is officially over. ill have no money and have to arrange multiple days a week to see both children which is hard enough with one evil ex.

Written by John Smith · Filed Under CSA Advice 

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Comments

  • Alice says:
    June 1, 2013 at 6:39 pm

    Hopefully you will be able to resolve the problems you are having in your current relationship and will be able to have a full time relationship with the new baby when he or she is born. If however the relationship does break up you will have 2 children to support

    If your income is more than £200 per week at present your CSA liability for your 3 year old will be 15% of your net income less any shared care allowance if you have your child overnight 52 nights or more a year

    if you resolve the relationship problems and you are living with your current girlfriend and the baby you can ask for a reassessment due to the fact that you have a child in your household – you will be given an allowance for the new baby before your maintenance is calculated for your first child.

    if you and your current partner split up there can be a private agreement between you for supporting the new baby, or you or your current partner can open a case with the CSA. If you choose to have a private agreement your assessment for your 3 year old will remain the same, and you would pay whatever is agreed between you direct to ythe mother of the new baby. If you or your current partner opens a case the current assessment for your 3 year old would be re-assessed, your assessment would be 20% of your net income – this will then be split 50/50 so each mother would get 10% and there would also be the relevant shared care allowances if you have each individual child overnight for 52 nights or more a year.

    Another option is for the mother of your 3 year old to close her case and you can have private agreements with both partners (or just with her if you manage to resolve the current relationship problems and stay with your current partner) – from your comment about the mother of your 3 year old I assume that it is unlikely that a private agreement would be an option on that case.

    A further option if you do not stay with your current partner is to register that case with the CSA but make it maintenance direct – this was your overall liability would be 20% of your income – you would pay 10% to the agency which would be paid out to the mother of your 3 yr old, and you would pay an agreed amount direct to the mother of the new baby.

    If you are on a net income of less than £200 the calculation is different to the 15% for 1 child and 20% for 2
    you could use the CSA calculator to get the figures you would be asked to pay for the various scenarios – at present the legislation is that Working tax credit and Child Tax credits can be used as income …WTC will be considered as income to the NRP if it is paid on the basis of the NRP being the higher earner in a joint claim, CTC will be considered as income to the NRP (the rules will change on this when the new Universal Credit comes in to replace WTC and CTC) … if you enter your income into the calculator along with the number of children you would be paying for as well as how many children you support in your household plus the number of nights your child(ren) stay overnight with you it will tell you what your CSA assessment would be.

    I don’t know how the calculator works if there are different levels of share care for individual children … shared care allowance is 1/7th of the maintenance calculation for 52-103 nights, 2/7ths for 104 – 155 nights 3/7ths for 156-206 nights … if you have 50/50 shared care your liability would be 50% of your MC less £7

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