Court orders - children
 

Some of you must have children from a previous marriage.

In terms of maintenance agreements dictated by UK courts for an ex's children, what happens when you move to Oz and your children are staying with the custodial parent in the UK?
Are you obliged by law to carry on paying maintenance?

Re: Court orders - children
 

Nobody? :unsure:

Re: Court orders - children
 

I think it unlikely. It took decades for NZ and OZ to work out a system regarding child maintenance payments and still has flaws in its delivery and efficency.

You would though become liable once you took up residence in the UK (including back payments) and would have it linked to your wages or benefit. Don't know if they could enforce an order if you just went to UK on a holiday though.

OZ does not have the reciprocal arrangements with UK that NZ does, so doubt child support is enforceable

Re: Court orders - children
 

http://www.dca.gov.uk/family/remo/contents.htm

http://www.csa.gov.au/international/uk.aspx#payer

RR if you want to wriggle out of your parental responsibilities you better check out the links above.

Re: Court orders - children
 

Obliged by caring for and loving your kids maybe ?

Re: Court orders - children
 

Thanks for the replies. :)

"RR if you want to wriggle out of your parental responsibilities"

"Obliged by caring for and loving your kids maybe ?"

How sad that you wish to judge without being party to any of the facts surrounding the situation. :(

On the contrary, the children have been financially well looked after whilst the absent parent has accepted a much lesser standard of living to allow those children to maintain a comfortable lifestyle.
The absent parent and the absent parents family have been refused to have any form of visitation rights to those children. This was due to a court order allowing the custodial parent the decision whether the absent parent and/or family members i.e. grandparents could see those children.
For a considerable number of years, this has been repeatedly refused. The absent parent cannot afford to go to court to have visitation rights altered, but has accepted that the children are being brought up well and have a comfortable lifestyle.

Children and marriage breakups aren't always black and white. Please do not become judge and jury based on what you hear about in the media or from friends, family or relatives.

Finally, it is not a question on how to stop maintenance payments to the custodial parent, it is a question, whilst never easy to broach, is still something that crops up in due course.

Re: Court orders - children
 

Yes

Re: Court orders - children
 

Thanks Siren & Brian, i'll pass the information on. :thumbup:
If you have direct experience on this, i'd appreciate any advice which may be helpful by PM to avoid any further morality issues on such a delicate matter on a public forum. (or anyone else for that matter if they don't want to reply here).

Re: Court orders - children
 

When we have children we accept a lower standard of living than if we were single. That's just how it is.

It's unfortunate that you've not been able to keep visitation rights, but I daresay the courts had good reason. If you can afford to move to Australia Im certain you could have contested a court order if it was unfair.

You are legally and morally obliged to help provide for your children, even from Australia. Wherever you are in the world, they are still your children.

Re: Court orders - children
 

quercus
I'm not one to say the rights and wrongs of the absent parents thoughts and questions. I am only asking because it had came up through conversations about my emigration process to Australia.
The absent parent had asked me with regard to maintenance payments solely because the absent parent feels life might be better than in Britain. It probably doesn't help i'm entusiastic about my move! :D

To answer your comments above.
In regard to the absent parents situation, the custodial parent and the children have maintained the standard the custodial parent was accustomed to before the children were brought into this world. It is the absent parent that has accepted living a lesser lifestyle so that the children would not suffer. Also, due to the strained relationship between both partners, it was decided it was in the best interests of the children that they should not be subjected to the animosity both partners had for each other. Over time, this evolved into the thought that once the " the dust settled", both parties would return to being civil with each other and hence agreed that the custodial parent would have the right to allow visitation at the custodial parents discretion. This applied to the absent parent and the absent parents family which included grandparent, brother, sisters, aunties etc.
After 10+ years of repeated negotiation for visitation or updates on schooling and welfare,the custodial parent refuses to give any form of communication or visitation with any member of family.

As an edit: "but I daresay the courts had good reason"
The reason as far as i am aware is that because of the severity of the breakdown in the relationship, the courts decided that it would be in the best interests of the children, that they were not subject to the parents issues and so elected that in future, both parents (through time) could arrive at an amicable solution on visitation between themselves when they felt comfortable doing so and time had passed. Evidently, despite no direct communication between both parties (i.e. face to face), the custodial parent has used this agreement to their own advantage at the expense of the children.

Children should never be used as pawns in the game of adult relationships.. makes you glad your happily married. Nasty business this divorce stuff and shouldn't be taken lightly.

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Then I dont understand WHY the question was asked. :confused:

Re: Court orders - children
 

I will add something I do know about how child support via oz csa works.

They will make an assessment based on OZ income and decide how many OZ dollars will be paid. The UK govt would not be able to dictate this amount. For example NZ csa demand what's called 2% penalties (nasty little addons for 'late payment', actually payment they didn't get cos often they didn't get off their bum and do their work!) These are compounded like compound interest. OZ does not collect them.

I know someone who was billed $100,000 in child support, had been in oz a number of years and was unemployed. It turned out these 2% penalties accounted for something like $55,000 of the bill! Anyway, in the end NZ wanted $60 a month. OZ said no and awarded NZ payment rate of $25 AUD a month.

Remarrying, having more children in future, work changes etc, etc can all affect rate of payment

Re: Court orders - children
 

wish someone would tell my boys father about this! even the child support agency cant be arsed with it...and they know where he is and thats his working...

i myslef cant be arsed with it now..

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Southern Comfort
The absent parent is fed up with life in the UK (after listening to me probably... :thumbsup:) and wonders what would happen in terms of the children, which wouldn't be emigrating, but staying with the custodial parent, that's all. It was just one of those questions which cropped up in conversation.

Perhaps i didn't word the question correctly and reads like a typical absent parent trying to avoid the responsibilities of parenthood, but this case is far from it. It's the custodial parent that needs an injection of maturity.

Re: Court orders - children
 

Hi kiwi_child
That sounds like he might have been employed at some time in the past though? ( to accrue $55000 of late payments? )