Maintenance - is this taken into consideration

Fiona

Hi all

When a man is paying maintenance to the mother of his child, would the courts take into consideration other 'benefits' which are available to the child / children?

So say for example a man pays €150 per week for 3 children, they have free transport, free doctors visits and they are on his private health insurance would the judge take that into consideration as well?

Would also be interested to speak to any fathers who have lost homes / rented accommodation that they would have used to have overnight stays due to rising costs in accommodation and how it has affected them and if they have had to change access orders because of it etc.

Feel free to PM

patrick1977

All I can say in my experience is that they do not.
The judge acted in a bizarre manner and denied me access to legal aid although I had applied for it and politely asked for an adjournment as the legal aid board had delays at the time.
So I was unemployed due to being laid off and was taken to court for an increase in maintenance by my childrens mother(who earns over 60k salary). The judge merely gave the other side what they wanted. He did not look at my means even though I handed a signed copy to him. Told the judge I needed enough to live on to travel to collect my children and go to training course, job interviews etc. I was happy to increase once I had a job.
The result was my social welfare being €160 and maintenance payments went to €100. Go figure how to live on €60 per week. Bye bye car and training courses. Although I make it work by shopping in charity shops, living on cheapest foods etc. Its been that way for a year now despite my appeals. So I dont have transport to see my children at the moment until I hopefully get work again. Maybe other courts/judges are different but this particular one is cork county is like the wild west. Seems more like punishment exercise than anything. A real eye opener and solicitors just shrug their shoulders and say they cant help as the same outcome will occur.

Fiona wrote: »

Hi all

When a man is paying maintenance to the mother of his child, would the courts take into consideration other 'benefits' which are available to the child / children?

So say for example a man pays €150 per week for 3 children, they have free transport, free doctors visits and they are on his private health insurance would the judge take that into consideration as well?

Would also be interested to speak to any fathers who have lost homes / rented accommodation that they would have used to have overnight stays due to rising costs in accommodation and how it has affected them and if they have had to change access orders because of it etc.

Feel free to PM

Fiona

patrick1977 wrote: »

The result was my social welfare being €160 and maintenance payments went to €100. Go figure how to live on €60 per week. Bye bye car and training courses. Although I make it work by shopping in charity shops, living on cheapest foods etc. Its been that way for a year now despite my appeals. So I dont have transport to see my children at the moment until I hopefully get work again.

Patrick I am genuinely shocked and very sad to hear this. I highly doubt this would happen in a Dublin court there are scrouts paying a tenner a week to their kids and you DO NOT fall into that category however that's an excessive amount of maintenance to be paying for somebody in receipt of social welfare.

Have you considered keeping receipts of purchases in charity shops etc to show how you are living and going back and representing yourself?

There is no limit to how many times you can take a case to vary a maintenance order and you can represent yourself. I would ask the court for the mother to provide a statement of means to the court along with a p60 and a p21 for the proceeding year.

Bloody hell my blood is boiling I would come down and represent you myself if a non legal person could this is just so wrong.

Please do not accept this situation x

sexmag

Fiona wrote: »

Patrick I am genuinely shocked and very sad to hear this. I highly doubt this would happen in a Dublin court there are scrouts paying a tenner a week to their kids and you DO NOT fall into that category however that's an excessive amount of maintenance to be paying for somebody in receipt of social welfare.

it does, i was unemployed on 185 a week social, arrears accrued as i had asked the ex to reduce it without going to court and couldnt pay the full amount, she declined and i paid what i could, went to court and a judge made an order of 30 euro maitenance a week and 30 arrears a week, i have a mortgage,2 other childre and expenses to cover 125 a week for all that is nothing. I asked how am i to collect my child as ill have no koney for transport, he asked where i lived and where the mother lives, he said i should walk, i told him its a 2.5 hour walk one way, how can i do that with a 4 year old. He just shurgged he shoulders, thankfully i appealed and the judge in the circuit court overturned the whole thing and was amazed at how some of the distrcit court judges make rullings.

Fiona wrote: »

There is no limit to how many times you can take a case to vary a maintenance order and you can represent yourself. I would ask the court for the mother to provide a statement of means to the court along with a p60 and a p21 for the proceeding year.

There is and there isnt, you can only vary a maintenance order 6 months after its been ordered, other than an appeal wihin 21 days of course