child support

The court decides based on his income unfortunately

If you take it to court he has to pay or after a while he can get jail time or suspended license for not paying if u guys agree on an amount n if he stop paying nothing u can do because its not court ordered and b hard to prove he paid this amount monthly until blah blah blah u know

My sons dad pays 200 a month without CMS or court

I'm not sure who you need to tell but they work out what he's earning and take the money out of his pay, I only know this because of a lady whos ex partner was paying little to nothing towards Child maintenance and then once it was mentioned to the correct people she then knew how much he was actually earning and they gave him the amount he needed to pay

With daycare costs? Whew

The court decides at a hearing but in my opinion at least 500 that's reasonable

My ex paid 144 a week

I would absolutely do it through child maintenance services, my children’s dad was paying £100 a month for them both which I agreed to, but after a few missed payments I decided to set it up through them and now I get £425 a month. He works 40 hours a week and earns £31000 a year before NI and tax and has the children for one night a week.

If its for 1 child and you have full custody ie the child stays with you 7 nights a week then through the CMS youd be entitled to 12% of his monthly income. Its pretty straight forward if hes on payroll at his job because CMS can see his income & tell you what his weekly liability is to you. But if hes self employed it can be more complex or if hes unemployed and on benefits the amount he has to pay is minimal.

CMS has access to HMRCs systems so theyll be able to see whatever income he's paying tax on. If the numbers dont add up or seem to be much lower than his lifetyle they do have powers to look into that.. but its harder to establish what his weekly financial liability will be. If you file for maintenance theyll tell you what his annual income is, so if you feel its wrong you can flag it.