Child maintenance payments if either parent moves abroad

When it comes to planning a move abroad, you are undoubtedly met with equal measures of excitement and dread at the sheer number of things to organise before heading overseas. However, it is important that, regardless of arrangements already in place, the well-being of your children is top of that list.

More often than not, once separated, one parent assumes the role of day-to-day care for the children, known as the ‘receiving parent’. The parent who does not assume day-to-day care for the children is the ‘paying parent’.

Now, if shared care is organised, whereby children split their time between parents, this can affect the amount of child maintenance payable. This only applies if the children spend, on average, one night a week (52 nights a year) with the paying parent.

When is child maintenance payable?

When two parents split, they are both expected to continue to pay towards the cost of their children, up until the age of 16 or 20 if they are in higher education. Often, this means one parent (paying parent) paying the other (receiving parent).

Many factors affect how much child maintenance you should pay, and parents often agree on an amount that they deem suitable to be paid and transfer it each month on a voluntary basis. This is referred to as a family-based agreement.

However, what starts as good intentions can quite often break down and paying parents may be late with payments, or they may decide to change the amount of maintenance they are paying based on arbitrary reasons.

Alternatively, parents can engage the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) to calculate the monthly amount to be paid and enforce payment in the UK by taking it from the paying parent’s wages.

When a paying parent lives outside of the UK

When the paying parents live abroad, it can prove difficult to enforce payment. The CMS can only enforce child maintenance payments against a paying parent if they live in the UK. Or if the paying parent lives abroad and falls under one of the following categories:

• The paying parent works overseas in the service of the Crown, i.e. civil servant based overseas, such as in a foreign embassy;
• The paying parent is a member of the UK Armed Forces;
• The paying parent works overseas for a UK based company, i.e. where the company makes payments via a UK payroll and is registered under the Companies Act 1985 (England, Wales and Scotland) or the Companies (Northern Ireland) Order 1986; or
• The paying parent works overseas on secondment for certain organisations like a Health Trust or Local Council.

If a paying parent lives abroad, does not fall under one of the above categories and has terminated child maintenance payments, the receiving parent must seek a child maintenance order through the Family Court and then enquire as to whether the (now non) paying parent resides in a REMO country.

What is a Reciprocal Enforcement of Maintenance Order (REMO)?

A Reciprocal Enforcement of Maintenance Order (REMO) is an arrangement the UK has with over 100 countries that ensures the enforcement of a child maintenance order made by the Family Court of England & Wales.

If you make a REMO application it will be enforced by the courts according to the laws of the country where the parent lives.

What happens if the paying parent lives in a non-REMO country?

If the paying parent lives in a country that does not have a REMO arrangement with the UK, like Russia, China, the UAE etc. then the ability to enforce an order will depend entirely on the laws of that country.

When a receiving parent and children live outside of the UK

If the receiving parent and children live outside of the UK the process is simply mirrored. The receiving parent must obtain an order from the court in the country they are living, confirming their entitlement to child maintenance. That order, if made in a REMO country, can then be enforced in the UK.

However, the maintenance calculation for the paying parent will be based on an assessment of the foreign country’s child maintenance and not the CMS in the UK.

For further information and trusted legal advice regarding matters of child maintenance, get in touch with the team at Carlsons Solicitors.