Diversion of income to reduce maintenance payments

Just after a bit of advice. My ex has announced that he is increasing his pension contributions massively and I wondered what might constitute this being seen as a diversion of his income.

Previously he was making minimal £50 per month contributions. This was following a highly acrimonious divorce. He''s just got a new job (salary £85k) and announced he was increasing to £550 per month. To be honest I thought this was fair enough as he obviously needed to increase his contribution.

He also announced that his maintenance payments would be changing, but used his net rather than gross income to work this out. I pointed this out with a new figure.

He then replied to say he was increasing his pension payments to £1450 per month and that his current partner would be supporting him to do this. It strikes me that he is going to great lengths to make what will be a relatively small reduction in maintenance payments......I will be about £800 per year worse off, where''s he will have to pay ~ £17k in additional payments.

I''ve looked on the CM website and it''s a bit vague. I don''t think I will take any action, was just curious to know if this could be interpreted as "diversion of income".

Many thanks in advance.

Did you recieve a pension share during divorce. Was wondering if he is attempting to recoup his loses?

Not sure there is anyway you can prevent him doing this.

My ex did exactly the same thing - I had payments through CSA and the more he topped up his pension the less I got! There was nothing I could do about it - it meant the kids suffered but he didn''t care!
If you''ve not sorted out your finances yet and depending what type of pension he''s got - you could end up getting more if the pension was to be shared? This is what happened in my case also by the time the finances were sorted the value of his pension had increased dramatically as he kept topping it up by large amounts so my % was more. It didn''t help me prior to that though.
Could you apply for maintenance pending suit or whatever they call it now to help until finances are sorted - I think that''s worked out differently?

We got divorced last year. I didn''t get any of his pension. When we separated he reduced his pension payments to £50 per month.

This has all come about because he''s got a new job with a salary increase. So he''s increased his pension contribution from £50 to £1450. I know he needed to increase it, but this seems excessive. Plus he actually said in an email to me that his current partner is supporting him financially to do this, so they are diverting his income to a pension.

When I looked on the CM options website it says that diversion of income eg by paying excessive amounts into a pension is not allowe, problem is it doesn''t define what excessive amounts are. I don''t want to open a can of worms, but it would be quite good to point out to him that I could!

Thanks

Does he pay via CMS?

If his gross is £85k then after tax and NI he will net about £4700 per month. Even by paying that much into his pension with the tax relief he would still net about £3900

How much does he pay you because the problem with using the diversion of income argument is that most people don''t take home £3900 per month and 20% is not an unrealistic amount to pay into a pension scheme especially if his pension is small.

Have to agree that 20% of income paid to pension isnt unreasonable or excessive especially if he is making up for lost contributions.

Ok, point taken. I hadn''t realised its 20% of gross income.

To be honest it''s not worth making a fuss over. I''m just annoyed because he is blatently doing it to reduce the amount he pays me, but I do realise this is still more than most get!

Thanks