Support your children!

On divorce, one contentious issue is sorting out child maintenance, ie how much should the parent with whom the child does not live with should pay. 

The Child Maintenance Service was put in place to deal with the upsurge in applications the courts were receiving in relation to parents not paying for their children.

The amount a parent should be paying towards their  children is calculated based upon their income and how often they see the children. However, in a recent case, Mr Justice Mostyn has called upon the Government to change the law in relation to child maintenance stating that the parents assets should also be taken into account. This is due to the case before him where a mother was awarded just £7 a week to support her 16 year old son despite his father being a multi millionaire. 

This will hopefully ensure that parents are receiving an appropriate level of support for their children. 

Estranged fathers with expensive homes should be forced to pay more towards the upbringing of their children, one of Britain's most senior family judges has said. 

The current system means that those who have low income but have valuable property or investments pay much less in child support - but a judge has said the law is unfair and should be changed. 

A 2012 reform means that child maintenance payments are based solely on actual income, allowing parents to organise their assets so their contributions are minimal. 

But Mr Justice Mostyn said sympathetic judges could order more generous lump sum payments to be made to wives disadvantaged by the new rules.