Does Gingerbread have a monopoly on the argument?
In an article in The Times this week headlined Fathers use elaborate tricks to avoid paying child support we hear the same one sided story from ‘single parent’ charity Gingerbread that men are feckless...
View ArticleMIAMS, adoption and more
A week in family law In 2016 over 60 per cent of couples did not attend a Mediation Information and Assessment Meeting (MIAM) before applying for a court order to settle disputes over parenting,...
View ArticleWitnessing child abuse exempts you from CMS fee
Single parents who apply to the Child Maintenance Service for financial assistance will no longer have to pay the £20 fee if they can demonstrate that they witnessed the abuse of their children. The...
View ArticleGovernment wants to postpone CSA closure
The government has announced plans to extend the planned closure of the Child Support Agency. The timed shutdown of the notorious government agency began in 2012 following the introduction of successor...
View ArticleIs the CMS as effective as the government would have us believe?
As, I’m sure, most family lawyers will attest, and possibly contrary to the view of many of those outside the justice system, the vast majority of family cases are resolved by agreement. Only about ten...
View ArticleThe problem of enforcing child maintenance against joint accounts
Enforcement of orders requiring one party to pay money to another is often not easy, and not cheap. In all cases therefore careful consideration must be given to the prospects of success before...
View ArticleChild maintenance evaders targeted by new bill
A private member’s bill on child maintenance evasion has received its first reading in the House of Commons. Heidi Allen is the Tory MP for South Cambridgeshire. She introduced the Child Maintenance...
View ArticleJust within bounds: global maintenance orders and child support
For better or for worse, the Child Support Act 1991 removed from the courts the power in most cases to make child maintenance orders. Now such orders can essentially only be made to give effect to a...
View ArticleBlood from a stone: new initiatives to recover child maintenance
I think it is putting it mildly to say that the issue of actually recovering child maintenance from non-resident parents has been the bane of the child support maintenance system ever since it was...
View ArticleA personal review of the year, part 1
In a (probably futile) attempt to make the traditional annual review of the year a little bit different, this year I am concentrating not so much on the big family law news stories, but rather the...
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