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Maintenance for the older child
ASK A FAMILY LAWYER In this regular column, Stowe Family Law solicitors answer readers’ questions on different legal issues. Today’s query goes to Jennifer Williamson, a senior solicitor based in our...
View ArticleChild maintenance backlog exceeds £3.8 billion
The amount of uncollected child maintenance in Britain now exceeds £3.8 billion, the BBC has claimed. The figure, highlighted on Victoria Derbyshire show, is based on collated government statistics and...
View ArticleChild benefit & the ending of child support liability
A recent case highlights the issue of the link between the payment of child benefit and the liability of the non-resident parent (NRP) to pay child support. In this post I set out a basic overview of...
View ArticleBrexit, divorce and more
A WEEK IN FAMILY LAW The High Court has held that a ten year old boy, who has been brought up as a Muslim, must attend an Islamic faith school in London, despite his father’s objections. The father...
View ArticleFinding fault, family law reform and more
A week in family law Following swiftly on from the Court of Appeal’s judgment in the Owens case, interim findings from research exploring how the current divorce law works in practice have been...
View ArticleChild Maintenance Service must be less ‘tentative’
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) is too “tentative” in its approach to enforcement and must take a stronger approach to enforcement, MPs have insisted. The CMS was launched in 2012 as a replacement...
View ArticleThe Charlie Gard case, a CMS report and more
A WEEK IN FAMILY LAW The Charlie Gard case continues, with news that the parents are appealing the decision of Mr Justice Francis that doctors can withdraw life support from Charlie, allowing him to...
View ArticleIs the government’s child support policy just a con?
“The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.” – Milton Friedman I wanted to say a few words about the recent report on the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) published by the...
View ArticleVoluntary child support statistics released
Around 16,900 children now financially benefit from voluntary child maintenance arrangements between their parents, the government has announced. Officially known as ‘family based arrangements’,...
View ArticleAn election, some statistics and more
A week in family law So, we have a hung parliament. Quite what this will mean for family law and the various promises made by the parties is not at all clear, but I suspect that all talk of family law...
View ArticleLoopholes ‘depriving single parents of child support’
‘Loopholes’ mean too many absent parents are not paying their dues, single parent charity Gingerbread has claimed. In a new report entitled Children Deserve More, Gingerbread insist that recent reforms...
View ArticleIt is no surprise that parents are getting away with child maintenance avoidance
On Monday the single parent charity Gingerbread published a report looking into the issue of child maintenance avoidance. It paints a pretty damning picture of just how easy it is for some paying...
View ArticleDoes 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...
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