I have been separated since January, and was paying maintenance over and above the CMS 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 CMS 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?
From the sound of things, you and your wife arranged access between yourselves, and you have voluntarily given more than the CMS recommended amount of Maintenance For Your Child (for one child it’s set at 17% of net income) for as long as possible, and even now you adhere to the CMS guidelines.
If your ex is threatening to reduce or stop contact with your child, you may want to use our free Access Denied Action Plan.
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 family-law mediation service or a solicitor about your position. If you and your ex can’t reach an agreement about access, you might want to have mediators or solicitors to help arrange an agreement between the two of you.
Check what legal rights you have as a separated father. Takes 2 minutes.
Try our Father's Rights Checker free, here on this site →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.
Your situation may be slightly different. ask a question below ↓ and our editorial team will reply with our advice.
My ex partner left the family home end of January this year.. we have a 3 year old boy and 21 month old girl together we have tried mediation to sort out contact arrangements order but he didnt wish to continue, we then had a court hearing for c100 child arrangements order which he didnt attend ..so i now have a court order which states the chilldren live with me and are to spend day time twice a week with dad .. he now is taking me to court for overnight access which i feel the children wont cope with at this moment in time as they are very young and never stayed away from me or there own home.
There is also 3 older children who live with dad now and im also concerned there is not enough room for 5 children to share 2 bedrooms. The children are all girls age 8 10 and 13. Its alot of change for my little ones and think it will cause more disruption and they wont deal well with being in a house overnight with 3 older children and sharing a room. they have separate rooms at moment and use to just the 3 of us. The find it overwhelming when they have been to dads as there alot more people around and are hard to settle when they come home. i want to wait til they are a little older to stay overnight. My court order was only issued a month ago . How will caffcass see this and do you think i can stop overnight until there is sufficient space and they can deal with being away from me as the whole sistuation has made them very clingy to me.
I separated from my Wife in February 2017 when our son was only 10 months old. Since April 2017 we agreed in mediation to have shared custody and I have looked after our son for half the time single handily whilst having a full time job. Since the beginning of January 2020 our once amicable relationship has broken down to the point it become untenable and now without any notice has reduced my visitations with my son to one night a week without a court agreeing to it.
Can my Ex Wife dramatically change our sons routine which has been in place for over two years without the courts approval? I was supposed to get my son tonight and she has not dropped him off and will not answer my phone calls so I can try and reason with her. I'm absolutely devastated and do not wish to battle it out in court for two reasons. 1) Going through an unnecessary potentially lengthy court battle would have detrimental impact on our son as it is a stressful situation for all involved and 2) Paying unnecessary legal costs which can be expensive when the monies could be better spent on our son and each other.
What is the first step I should take?
Hello,
I have been divorced for my ex wife for over ten years now and my daughter is now 15 years old, whom live with my ex wife and I have noticve in past few months that my ex wife has made contact arrangements more difficult by doing things like changing previously agreed dates like for things like hoildays. that daughter does not want go on or times and places for collection of my daughter at which is not all possible for us to do at the short notice. I try to accomate my Ex-wife as much possible with dates and times were I can, but feel like it getting more difficult and I am considering weather to speak family lawer about my concerns that my ex wife is not upholding her end of our argreement made in 2008 in family court..Any advise please thank you
My concern is I can see her going for custody of our son, purely for the money. How would a judge see it if my son has lived with me for the past 7 months and I have allowed full access to the mum whenever she wants but she now insists he lives with her and her new fella. Even a 50/50 living arrangement split would be detrimental to his progress as she would rather put an ipad in front of him than read to him or help with his homework (something we do every night but she never did in the 5 years we were together.
Any guidance would be greatly appriciated
I previously had to seek legal advice and participate in mediation when my ex stopped me and my wife from seeing the children, but I incurred huge debt from this which I am still paying because my ex is a lawyer and did everything she could to ramp up my legal fees as high as possible. I cannot really afford to go down that route again and she wasn't truthful during the mediation anyway.
If this were to go to court, would it be considered reasonable for my ex to arrange weekend activities for the children in her local area, not mine (without any consultation) and insist that I take them to those activities if I want access? The main problem is that these activities do not involve all the children and so the practicalities are not straightforward. Firstly I don't always have access to the car for the full weekend because my wife works long hours and is often away from home for work (and her company car is our family car). In addition, unless I expect the child/ren not involved in the activity to wait around for the whole time that the other children are participating, it means a minimum 1.5 hour round trip to come home again and then another 1.5 round trip to pick up. Because my ex has arranged activities on both the Saturday and the Sunday, if my wife is away and I cannot leave the remaining child/ren at the house, it means the children spending 5-6 hours in the car during every 2 day visit that I have them!
After we returned from a recent holiday, my ex began causing problems again and has now stated that because the children only stay with us for 20 hours in total each visit (bearing in mind this is because of the activities she has arranged and so I put my foot down
My ex has been removing my access week on week at short notice.
She has requested a letter/email of my proposal for shared access.
I have replied several times but the format of my proposal is 'unacceptable';
not the times just the layout.
Is there a standard template for such arrangements? I cant find one.
ps I am well aware she is just being difficult, but need to clear this hurdle.
my works changed so now can have the girls every wednesday & thursday but when i ask my ex for thursdays she said no ,take me to court .can anyone help me
Is she allowed to do this ?
I got divorced from my ex-wife last year, but we never had a formal written agreement regarding access to my son who's just turned 8. (he lives with her in Bolton)
The weekly arrangement so far has been that I collect him from school on Tuesdays and then take him to his swimming lessons before dropping him off at his mum's at around 7pm.
I also have him on Sunday afternoons, either picking him up just before or just after lunch.
Unfortunately I've been late picking him up from school on a few occasions (the last time was on Tuesday, 1 November), and today, Sunday 6 November, I was late picking him up from his mum's.
I set off from Middlesbrough (where my current partner lives) at 11.30am, and received a text from my ex at 12.22pm saying: "Are you coming for Oscar today?"
At 12.24pm I replied: "Yes. Should be there 1.45pm"
At 12.25pm she replied: "Ok"
Due to roadworks I was slightly late, so at 1.48pm I sent a message saying: "There in 10."
At 1.49pm she sent me this text message: "Don't bother. You've just lost access. See you in court if you want it back."
When I turned up at her house just before 2pm, her car wasn't there and there was no answer when I called her phone.
My question is this: can she legally deny me access just like that when there was no formal agreement in place?
If not, what can I do?
Alternatively, if she can, what are my options?
I ought to finish by saying that I've been paying £200 maintenance each month, but recently I was made redundant, so can't currently pay it. (last month, October 2016, was the first payment I missed)
I understand this is not ideal, but can she still deny me access on these grounds?
What can I do??
Hope to hear back soon.
This question is about access arrangements.
I left my sons mother over 5 years ago and had to move into London due to not be able to afford child maintenance, live close by to my son and travel to work (London).
Since we spilt my sons Mother has ignored the access agreements we have and is constantly changing them. At one point I had to complete a 4 hour round trip in public transport for 3 months every time I picked up my son (even though I gave her my old car to assist in travel costs etc). By the time I got back home it would be past 22:00 and he would be fast asleep.
She dictates to me where I have to pick him up from and drop him off otherwise she won't let me see him. Just two weeks ago she demanded last minute that I take a £100 round taxi journey to pick my son up from a family event of hers. When I explained that I was waiting at the train station and didn't have that sort of money (id just got married) she said I couldn't see him.
It's getting really frustrating now as its been like this for 5 years. The examples I have given are a small selection.
I need to go through the courts but do you think it would be possible for the courts to outline when I see him and propose fair travel arrangements, as in I pick him up from hers and she picks him up from mine? I only ask because even if the courts set out access times and dates, based on her behaviour she will no doubt not care about that and put as many barriers up as possible...
Please help I feel totally helpless and alone. Every can see how badly she is treating me but no one knows what I can do.
We are gearing up for the financial settlement but she has hired a top lawyer and I think they are trying their best to fleece me. A consent order was drawn up saying that I would pay the £1200 mortgage every month. It appears she is planning on getting the judge to grant a Mesher order so that she can stay in the house until my youngest reaches 18 or is out of university. I'm not sure if legally it includes university education.
My wife has been taking the children to counselling behind my back. I found out about it after they had been to two sessions. She had been telling them to lie to me about going. She is trying to make out the reason for taking them is to help them get over the split. I contacted the counsellor myself and asked if I could be involved. The counsellor has been obstructive and not allowed me to go even to meet her. I know now that the whole thing has been setup. Last week I received a letter from the counsellor saying that she wanted to trial new living arrangements which would change the 3 days on 3 days off arrangement. It's proposed that I just have the children two nights a week and she has them 5. I would get them Sunday afternoon until late Tuesday evening. Sunday is always homework day as will Monday and Tuesday nights so I will have no quality time with them at all. The report is completely biased and basically the counsellor has been put up to this by my wife from day one. I know she is doing this in readiness for going to court so that she can persuade the judge that she needs a bigger financial settlement and also I will have to lay more child maintenance. What has really upset me is that this was all done behind closed doors and she has brainwashed the children into believing this is what they wanted. The children were very happy with the previous arrangement until she took them to counselling. They are scared of going against her as she is a very controlling woman. She is trying to alienate them against me. It's difficult as they are girls and she is really pushing the girly thing with them.
I've spoken with the children and they said they preferred being in their own bedrooms. It's breaking me as I am not the guilty party. I was forced out of my own home, I'm paying a huge mortgage and she's trying to come after me for another £800 a month for her income needs.
I am taking it to court as
- #extremelyfrustrateddad ,please help!
My ex and I have been seperated for 3 years now and divorce is going through. We have an approximate 50 50 split which we arranged amicably (ish). She did the paper work for the divorce and I was entirely happy with her statements as to our childcare arrangements working well etc...
I am still in the marital home and she lives close by. Our child is in Year 2. She is now looking at moving about a 30 minute drive away. Whilst she has said she is not planning on changing our child's school I am concerned that she might along with an attempt to change our where our child spends time largely based on her convenience and making sure she gets enough time to see our child once she has felt about it some more. After 3 years of this arrangement working well I don't want to have bust up as I have worked very hard to build an amicable relationship with her but do not believe a move of school or change in child care would be in our child's interests.
Does anyone have experience in a similar situation and, should it end in court, know what the courts would consider?
I have had contact with my daughter in contact centres that went ok until my stop taking my daughter so I would go back to court and the courts always took her side even tho I never missed ,then my ex decides I can see my daughter outside a contact centre which went very well until she stopped me seeing my daughter again I did not know where she lived only her mums address I would turn up there and my daughter was not there and I had no money for going back to court .I decide to sell my house which we had brought together her name was still on the deeds so I wrote a letter to her and gave to her mum she said she would take her name off the deeds only if I gave some money and I said fine only if I can see my daughter again which she said yes I have seeing my daughter for a few months now and of cause I gave her money but it was my time to pick my daughter a couple of weeks ago and she was not there my daughter is 11 and I my ex sent me a text saying that she does not want me see my daughter again I am still paying for her each month as well
But I don't know what to do now so can some one help
I have my children 3 nights a week and this past year i took them to school 4 out of 5 days. This year due to my job (college lecturer) i have a different timetable and I am unable to take them to school now. My ex has threatened to stop me having the kids overnight unless i take them to school. is it the responsibility of the parent who has them over night to take them to school the next day?
she walked out on me on numerous occasions during our relationship once removing all her belongings from the house we shared and leaving the entire contents of the freezer on the side to defrost. We got back together in December last year and everything was ok. Our son was born in March this year and i thought things between us better than ever.
Things began to go wrong again when she settled her tribunal for a small fraction of what she expected to get. she had in the past been subjected to domestic violence to a worrying level. She also suffers from stress anxiety and post traumatic stress disorder due to this. I am no saint and am alcoholic but was in recovery for 5 years before i met her but her petulant and childish behaviour tipped me over the edge and back onto the booze. She would storm out of the house and disappear for hours on end if i rang she would hang up or block my number. Often on a Friday night she would create a row and storm off to her mothers for the weekend this happened more and more toward the end.
I returned home one Monday in July i found her and her mother in the house removing her possessions ( she was not on the rent book i am the sole tenant). A row ensued which resulted in her calling the police to report me for drink driving which they did not take any further. I then receive a solicitors letter threatening a non molestation order.
She collects her things after it is all arranged and that night i get arrested for the assault and harassment of her. I was cleared of assault but had a harassment information notice given to me by the police. I have had no contact with my son for 7 weeks and have no way of contacting her to ask how he is. I received another solicitors letter yesterday threatening a non-molestation order as i had had enough last Saturday and called her mums land line only for the ex to answer. It also informs me that she will only allow me to see him through a contact centre due to my drinking and my mental health. She also demands £200 pm toward the baby but she is £15,000 in debt and i would loathe giving her that as he would not see any of it.
I am sober and back in recovery and have no mental health issues.
Trouble is with all this it seems to have come so easy to my ex to implement all this within such a short space of time. Has anyone else been through this i would really appreciate some advice as i cannot afford expensive legal bills??? It seems to me the harassment order has been taken out to make it impossible to contact her and ask about my son. thank you
Despite all her promises not to use the baby as a weapon, this has been an issue from day 1. My son is doing an apprenticeship at present and working for approx £2.50 per yr. Obviously he will step up as soon as he can but in meantime has brought Milk, nappies and anything he can (kept reciepts) She constantly changes days he can see her and when he does have her, she will turn her phone off so he can't contact her at all. So a Friday night will usually end up 2/3 days later.
She is now demanding £60 per we or he can't see her! She is receiving benefits and has also recently taken up with a man who has a very violent, criminal past as well as being involved with drugs.
last wknd was a nightmare after he threatened to attack my son, myself and husband. My husband has COLD and I suffer from severe anxiety. My son is a mess and we are at a loss as to what to do. We genuinely fear for his daughter's well being.
PLEASE HELP.
I think I will have to go to court, but I haven't really got money for this.. :-(
Being a self employed plasterer money is tight some times. I didn't give her money the other week, and she texted me "you haven't give me money for last week, I suggest if you want to see your daughter this weekend you transfer some money in to my bank now"
I'd appreciate any advice. Thank you very much
Paul....
Now the problem is my son has hot into to high school near his home with me (2 bus rides from dad), I have changed my our younger sons school do that to will be close as it's neigh on impossible getting them both across town to school on time snd into work as it is let alone when the change happens. I am attending mediation as I think it's within the boys interest to stay at home with me during the school week but them still see their dad at the weekend and have holiday time. Dad agree and is totally putting his rights ahead of what is better for the boys. He pays no maintenance never has, can not be bothered to communicate with me it has to be done through his mother andbim at my wits end. I have always been fair, fo all the dropping and picking up but he refuses to alter his schedule to fit 2 growing boys what can I do here?
Should I try and fight my corner and go through all the stress and expense that would entail..........or head off to a new life with my new wife? My son is unable to tell me what he wants.......because my ex is always hovering when ever we talk, and he has a limited capacity to express his feelings, at the best of times! I am very conflicted and need good legal advice......as my friends all tell me to go for the new life.
As per the minute of agreement should I have my daughter every second weekend regardless or, as its been suggested, if my daughter is with me for a week do I need to wait a minimum of 12 days to see her again.
Basically after a week with me I'd normally have to wait seven days for her to come back but they are looking to move it to suit this 12 days (not sure where this comes from) so the week i get her is a week later?
Dont want this to happen as plans have been made for the year to suit every second weekend.
Thank you - going out of our minds here....
What do I do?
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