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  4. Child Maintenance Service

How Child Maintenance Choices help families

If you’re a separated parent, you’ll need to pay the other parent child maintenance or receive it from them. Child Maintenance Choices can help you decide the best child maintenance arrangement for your family. They can give advice and explain how to set up an informal child maintenance arrangement.

What Child Maintenance Choices do

Child Maintenance Choices can:

  • explain ways to put in place a child maintenance arrangement, if you don’t already have one
  • help you check if the child maintenance arrangement you have is suitable for you and your child
  • use the online calculator to advise you how much child maintenance should be paid to you
  • put you in contact with the Child Maintenance Service

Separated parents agree child maintenance payments

Some separated parents are able to agree how much child maintenance is needed and how often child maintenance is paid. They have a family-based agreement for child maintenance. It’s an informal agreement.

The parent who doesn’t have the day-to-day care (the ‘paying parent’) pays child maintenance to the parent or person who does (the ‘receiving parent’).

If you’re the paying or receiving parent, you can ask Child Maintenance Choices about your child maintenance agreement. They can check if it’s a suitable arrangement for you and your children.

Separated parents don’t agree child maintenance payments

Sometimes separated parents cannot agree how much child maintenance should be paid.

If you’re the parent looking after the children most of the time, you’ll need to apply for a formal payment arrangement through the Child Maintenance Service (CMS). You can only do this through Child Maintenance Choices.

  • Applying for child maintenance

Child Maintenance Service

When you apply for child maintenance from the other parent, Child Maintenance Service will ask for information about your children and the other parent.

  • Child maintenance application checklist

They’ll set up formal arrangements to make sure the other parent pays you regular child maintenance. They can also enforce payments from the other parent if they stop paying.

Getting advice about other child maintenance problems

Parents who live apart often deal with other family or personal problems such as:

  • money
  • childcare
  • work
  • emotions
  • stress
  • health

Contact Child Maintenance Choices

Child Maintenance Choices can give you information about advice and support organisations.

  • Child Maintenance Choices

More useful links

  • Child maintenance: an introduction
  • Family-based child maintenance arrangements
  • Calculate child maintenance
  • What happens if you don't pay child maintenance
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Child Maintenance Service

  • Arranging child maintenance yourself
  • Calculate child maintenance
  • Child maintenance terms and their meaning
  • Child maintenance: an introduction
  • CMS support in domestic abuse or violence
  • Collecting child maintenance owed from 1993 or 2003 schemes
  • Dealing with relationship problems
  • Having a child maintenance arrangement
  • How Child Maintenance Choices help families
  • Making arrangements through the Child Maintenance Service
  • Manage your child maintenance case online

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