I would like to know if you could help me and my husband with a question that we have.
We are moving to Australia at the end of August next year and my husband has an 8 year old son from a previous relationship who will be staying behind with his natural mother. Dave is currently paying child maintenance through an organisation called CSA on a weekly basis. Our question is what do we do when we leave the UK as my husband wants to still pay for his son, but would rather give it straight to the mother so he knows his son will see all of it and not the government, the only problem is that the mother is on income support and all the other benefits as she is classed as disabled, would this affect her payments if she was getting money straight from my Dave into her bank acct as they are subsidised by the local council due to being a single mother etc.
We really don't know where we stand legally or what we are to do in this circumstance.
If you need any further information from ourselves please don't hesitate to contact me.
Does the mother need the cash to spend right now?
If not, then I would suggest paying a monthly amount directly in to a high-interest account for the son, which he cannot access until he is 18 or 21.
In fact, even if the mother does need some extra cash now, you could minimise the impact of these payments in terms of her 'income' if some was paid to her and some was paid in to a separate account for the son.
Have you tried ringing the CSA? I've never had any dealings with them myself, but you can't be the first person in this situation so they might know how best to deal with it.
