Family Allowance

Any advice or input would be gratefully accepted.

Situation is dad has 3 kids, has joint custody, joint residency, shared care for one third of the time (131 nights/180 days per year) and due to the acrimonious nature of the separation/divorce (mum had affair and left fmh with kids)dad has to provide everything for kids from toothbrushes, toys, winter/summer clothes and footwear, hair cuts, after school clubs/activities/birthday parties that fall on his days etc.. NOTHING is shared (not even medicines or childrens comforters, harsh I know - mum refuses to send ANYTHING other than kids in school uniform or the oldest, tattiest clothes on their back) dad wants to claim child benefit for one child (as he has kids 1/3 of the time and mum claims for 2 kids as she has them 2/3 of the time) He is self employed and has had to curb his working hours to have the children (losing 14k this year alone) so income has dropped considerably and every penny counts.Is this unreasonable for him to apply for child benefit and why is it so hard to make this kind of claim as it is not a means tested benefit and is supposed to be for the benefit of the children not the parents. Thoughts please.

Thanks

Child benefit is paid to the parent with the majority of care. To claim for 1 child he would have to have 1 of the children for the majority of the time which he doesnt.
He should be paying CM to CSA guidelines.
Most children have their own things at the NRP's house..my kids arnt allowed ANYTHING from my house, their home into their dads house...he sees it as tainted!
Unfortunately this is the way it is with acromonious splits.

I appreciate CB is paid the the parent with whom the children are the majority of the time, but having looked into what the criteria for CB is and what it is supposed to be for it seems pretty unfair that it cant be split. He pays his CM regularly, honours all his ccommitments as a parent does his fair share of Dr and dental appointments, has the children when they're ill, paying CM to support his kids and provide for them goes without saying, but he is then having to provide for them all over again at his home, I have two ex's (unfortunately) but have never had issues with not transferring childrens items with them, even losing whole sets of clothes/toys in the process - but as each parent pays his CM I just replace it out of that. I know these circumstances are extreme but my point is, if time is split 2 thirds to 1 third, then why can't the CB be split the same way.

Yes, but he also gets a reduction in his CM to cover providing for the children when they are with him. He can't have it both ways.

Sadie

He isn't asking for it to be both ways, just to be fair.

Again.. the point I raise... is why can't CB be split to reflect the proportion of time spent with each family unit. It is not means tested and is paid to all families for the children irrespective of income. It is paid as a whole for a united family, so why can't it be split for the same family unit when it separates.

That is my question.!

You say your ex is now on a much lesser salary, therefore the children's mother gets less CM than she was getting. How much less do you want her to have to provide for the children?

Mwappet - sadly some mum's see their kids as walking cash machines.

To answer your point, your ptr is an equal parent and has parenting expenses. Of course it's reasonable to expect that benefit paid to the children is shared between the parents doing the care.

My advice would be to ignore the nonsence and encourage your ptr to make the claim for child benefit for one of the children.

If successful...he could always make his own csa claim