Missed payments of court order child maintenance.

Hello,

My ex and I divorced 7 years ago. We have twins now aged 13 who live with me. We had an agreed court order that he would pay me £250 per month child maintenance. We had a Clean Break and had no financial assets. He has since remarried and has adopted his wife''s daughter.

Two years ago he stopped paying maintenance as he took time off work for an operation, this period lasted 9 months. This made life extremely difficult for myself and my boys. I asked if he would sell his upmarket car to pay me or top up the payments when he started work again. He refused both.

Whilst he is now paying again I was wondering if I could claim the missing payments? He doesn''t contribute to our boys'' school uniforms, hobbies or anything else.

He is verbally abusive and I no longer talk to him directly. Is there any way I can achieve this?

Thanking you in advance.

Unfortunately there is a time limit on reclaiming maintenance payment which I believe is one year so you may have difficulty claiming from two years ago especially if the non payment was due to him not earning.

MrsMathisfun is correct, there is a time limit of 12 months to claim arrears of maintenance. After 12 months it is still possible to claim arrears but you need leave (permission) first from the court to apply.

Strictly speaking if circumstances change and the payer of maintenance cannot afford payments the onus is on them to apply to court for a variation or to the Child Maintenance Service for an assessment rather than unilaterally decide to stop paying.

However judges have some discretion and every case is treated on it''s merits. There is no guarantee of successfully enforcing the arrears, particularly as the family would have had to go without if you were still together and he took unpaid sick leave. So it is better to try to negotiate between yourselves or through solicitors to see if agreement and compromise can be reached.

Courts expect separated parents to try and resolve matters before applying to court in any case. If necessary any correspondence can then be used as evidence that you have tried to settle the matter reasonably. Bear in mind the amount in dispute may not be worth the cost in either time or money.