Child Maintenance and how to find out more?
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) aims to provide information about your child maintenance options and making an agreement best suited to your circumstances.
There are different ways to make arrangements for making Child Maintenance, it is not necessarily a one size fits all approach. Generally ‘child maintenance’ is the term used to describe the money one parent should pay towards their child or children’s upbringing. It covers how a child’s living costs will be paid for when one of the parents no longer lives with them. It’s made when separated from the other parent (or if the parents have never been in a relationship).
Child maintenance can be a private arrangement between you and the other parent, it need not necessarily be made through the Child Maintenance Service (a government scheme.). It is however helpful to have any arrangement made legally binding and as such may well be worth consulting a legal professional.
Do be aware that CMS state it is currently taking longer than usual to set up Child Maintenance Service cases because of coronavirus (COVID-19). Payments can start within 12 weeks of making payment arrangements.
Child Maintenance Options can be contacted by calling: 0800 988 0988 Or you can contact them on their website: www.cmoptions.org