I have been separated since January, and was paying maintenance over and above the CSA calculation through their website. As I work away during the week I was initially allowed access every weekend. In May, my wife requested that she should be allowed access for 'Quality Time' every 3rd weekend, to which I agreed.
Since then, I have had to take a lower paid job, but I am still away during the week and I have now started to pay maintenance at the CSA rate. She now wants to reduce my access to ensure that I will have the children less than 104 nights per year.
Is she allowed to do this or am I better off going to court to gain access, bearing in mind that I cannot have custody of them during the week?
(Mr HM, 3 October 2008)
A.
From the sound of things, you and your wife arranged access between yourselves, and you have voluntarily given more than the CSA recommended amount of Maintenance For Your Child (for one child it’s set at 15% of net income) for as long as possible, and even now you adhere to the CSA guidelines.
Since the access arrangement is apparently between yourselves, then the negotiations are whatever you work out between the two of you, really. What you might well want to do, and should do, is talk to a solicitor about your position. If you and your ex can’t reach an agreement about access, you might want to have solicitors to mediate an agreement between the two of you.
Hopefully that will work, because you should see going to court as a proposal of last resort. It’s costly and time-consuming, and will do little to help relations between you and your ex, which on the surface would seem to have been quite good to this point.
You don’t mention how old your children are, but if you have to go to a court for a Contact Order and access set, their wishes will be taken into account, if they’re old enough to express them – the whole aim of the court is to set what’s best for the children. However, they will take prior access times into account, and the fact that you work away during the week should not matter in the least, since it hasn’t in the past.
You’re not disputing where they should reside, or even that your kids spend one weekend in three with their mother; you simply want to spend as much of your free time as possible with your children.
A court hearing on access will mean that there is a report from the Children and Family Court Advisory. A support service officer will interview you, along with your ex and others, in order to determine that you can meets the needs of the kids when they’re with you and whether they will be safe with you, even though you have almost certainly proved that to be the case in the past. It’s just procedure.
The ideal solution, though, is if you and your ex can resolve this amicably between the two of you.
I was living in Vetnam for a number of years with my ex partner and now 3 year old daughter - we all have British passports. Earlier last year we returned to the UK seperately and I proceeded with legal action to keep my daughter from leaving the country with her mother until we had settled our disputes, in which my daughters mothers drunken behaviour was threatening the safety and innocence of my daughter. The case was dissmissed as my daughters habitual residence was determined to be Vietnam and there are no English lawyers which specialise in family affairs out there. The courts here provided legal documents stating full access to my daughter for me. They moved back to Vietnam 6 months ago - I haven't seen or heard my daughter since as her Mother has blocked all access (email, skype, phonecalls.) to my daughter. I lived with my daughter from birth until she was two and a half, which is when she returned to vietnam. our mutual friends tell me that if I go there she would call the police to keep me away. This is hurting so bad and I have to find a solution - has there been a similar, probably more than complicated, scenario??
Rich - 16 January 2012 @ 2:52 PM
My Partner has a court order allowing him access to his daughter everyother weekend from 11am saturday until 3pm sunday. however his ex allows him to have the baby from friday morning right the way through. In the court order it does not have any restrictions as to what he can do with the baby. We took the baby to our home in liverpool which is allowed as where we normally stay at his mums was having construction work we told her this 2 weeks in advance and she was ok with this Now she has cancelled all contract and is not allowing my partner any access to his daughter even though he has not broke the court order.Can anyone give us any advice as to what we can do?
annoyed partner - 15 October 2011 @ 1:28 PM
I have a contact order that I applied for in 2009. It allows me to have my daughter every other weekend and one tea time pick up after school every other week, and some school holidays too. The mother of my daughter lives about 60 miles away and the midweek access is too expensive and far too time consuming as I have to work and can not afford to continually take time off. This has recently been exacerbated by the fact they have moved again and a bit further away, with a school that finishes half an hour earlier. I have tried to get the csa to recognise this cost, but they will not take it into account. I am considering stopping the contact on a midweek but do not want to jeopardise the weekend and holiday contact I have. Can I stop this contact, by simply informing the ex wife that this is the case, or would this mean that I am in danger of somehow allowing her to mess me about on the weekends and then not be in breach? Would I have to formally vary the order? I applied for it myself, and I have noted that the order only states that she (the ex) has to 'make the child available', and I have to drop my daughter home afterwards. Help
dsaunders - 7 September 2011 @ 8:16 AM
Thank you for your response - I have been informed though - that the mother cannot remove the kids from their schools without the written consent of the father (who has dealt with the paperwork for the schools - so his name is on the schools papers as a guardian)? Is this correct? She has to go to Court if she contests this?
Thank you - going out of our minds here....
Sarah - 12 August 2011 @ 10:53 AM
Unfortunately, your partner's ex isn’t legally obliged to live near you, so if she wishes to move she could. That said, this may be an empty threat as you have stated she has demanded more money from your ex.
SeparatedDads - 11 August 2011 @ 9:37 AM
Hi there, I have a further question - reading the above was extremely helpful, but our situation is slightly different.I am with someone who has 2 children. He is recently divorced but separated 3-4 years ago from his ex-wife. He pays WAY over what he should for child maintenance. We have the children every other weekend, every Wednesday and every other Tuesday. They love coming to us and are EXTREMELY close to their father (we currently live 2 mins from ex-partner). My partner has PR, and joint custody of the children and they have always been pretty amicable. Until recently. For whatever reason (trust me when I say that we have never upset her before, despite her being diffifcult, we have left it and not reacted so as not to upset the children) the ex wife is annoyed with us as she wants extra financial help, which is very unreasonable given what he pays already, and has said some nasty things. One is that she is threatening to move the kids 250 miles away. This is extremely upsetting and my partner is really worried. Please can someone advise if she is able to do this? Really appreciate this. thank you.
Sarah - 10 August 2011 @ 5:13 PM
I divorced 6 months with an access plan over 3 weekends agreed by both parties, signed off in court and divorce was granted. Then I had to change one week cause work stopped me from working the evening shift on my one in three sunday meaning I only see the kids 2 weekends out of 3. One of my kids has football training on sat and because I have 2 babies, my new partner and her two kids come with us, sometimes I cant take him. Because of this she changes my access by saying I can't have either of them until the following day due to training because he has to go. Can she legally change my access without my permission or is she in contempt of our divorce settlement?
p - 8 July 2011 @ 8:22 PM
I have just been to court and gained an access arrangement to see my children. Stated within the access arrangement are holidays I have booked, this has been agreed by the judge. My ex-wife now has stated that she wants to book a holiday that clashes with one that has been detailed within the agreement.
What do I do?
