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Q. Does the Statutory Maintenance Service (SMS) take into account times when the children stays with the parent they don't normally live with?
A. Yes. The SMS takes into account 'shared care' of children when calculating child maintenance. We reduce the amount depending on how many nights a year a child spends with each parent.
For cases on the current child maintenance scheme we reduce the amount of maintenance by one seventh for each night of the week that the child stays with the non-resident parent.
Q. What happens if the child spends an equal amount of time with both parents?
A. In current scheme cases, if the child spends 175 nights with both parents we reduce the amount of child maintenance by half. We then take off an additional £7.
If care is shared equally child maintenance is payable to the parent who claims Child Benefit for the child. In these situations we would encourage parents to come to their own financial arrangement in addition to our assessment.
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