School fees

My husband has offered to pay half the mortgage and the school fees and nothing else. He says this is a great deal He has a good pension,share options and company car, private medicine etc. and a good salary. I work part time my children are 10 and 12.

Under the CSA guidelines it is recommended that he pays 20% of net pay each month for 2 children as child maintenence.

School fees are not allowed to be considered as child maintenance so your ex will have to pay the 20% on top of the school fees or not pay the school fees and let the child go to state school.

The mortgage payment can count as mainteance.

It's difficult to comment without considering the overall picture and there's not enough detail to do that. Is this in the short term or are you talking about the final settlement?

Just a minor correction, Specialdad, but an important one. The CSA does not recommend 20% of net pay, but requires that to be paid, if an application for child maintenance is made through them. This can only be seen as a guideline if you are making an agreement outside the CSA framework, and such an agreement can't be made part of a court order. I think you can sometimes get a court order for additional maintenance, such as school fees, though.

Sadie

Hi Agnes
As an opening offer it gives you a starting point, but I expect your solicitor to be able to help you increase the level of fairness between the two of you and help make sure that the children don't suffer in their education. From the sounds of it your ex has quite a collection of bits and pieces wrapped up in his job. Pension plans are often forgotten or not considered as valuable and this could really help you in the long term if you have only worked part time whilst bringing the family up. It is worth collecting all of the information together and then working out a solution that meets both of your needs. If you are still on good terms with your ex it might be that the Collaborative Law process would help you to reach a solution. This site has a section on Collaborative Law and there are likely to be specially trained lawyers in your region who can talk to you about it. It’s definitely not for everyone and needs both parties to want to work towards a solution, but might be worth considering.