Maintenance payments?

SkadooshJ

First of all, sorry if this is the wrong forum.

I am just curious about something. Myself and ex partner have been split up for a number of years, i have been paying €50 every week as maintenance but instead of giving it to my ex, i pay it to my childs play school(€200 a month).

I am on the dole and receive €188 a week and as her school is finishing in the next few weeks i would like to pay a bit less just for the summer unless i get a job beforehand. Someone told me that legally, i only have to pay €30, is this true?

January

There is no legal amount of child maintenance. Discuss it with your ex, if it's court ordered you have to keep paying the €50 p/w.

SkadooshJ

Thanks January, we havent been to court yet. We are going next month, can i ask the judge to lower the maintenance payments until i find work?

utyh2ikcq9z76b

€50 a week from your dole is a lot, considering its means tested that an adult should only be able to get by on €188 and you only have €138 for yourself...But the fact you have been paying it means you probably can afford it, unless you can show that paying €50 a week was driving you into debt, friends family etc had to give you loans/credit card maxed out/credit union loans etc..I would bring evidence of all this to court to fight your case!!!

The Corinthian

SkadooshJ wrote: »

Thanks January, we havent been to court yet. We are going next month, can i ask the judge to lower the maintenance payments until i find work?

Yes you can. While I've heard that €20 - €30 p.w. is commonplace for someone in your circumstances, there's no 'official' level, so whether the judge will is another matter - one judge will set it at €20 p.w. and another at €80 p.w. and damned if anyone can find any rhyme or reason in how they often arrive at their decisions.

Just bare in mind that as you've been paying directly to the Kindergarten, your payments have effectively being going under the radar of the social welfare (presuming your child's mother has been receiving any). If so, once the order is there, she's going to have your maintenance deducted from her rent allowance and ironically will end up worse off than if she simply agreed to a reduction privately, while keeping it under the radar - you may want to mention this to her.

Moonbeam

Is she in the ECCE scheme next year? if so you need to negotiate a new payment anyway.