When does CMS stop? Child Support Answers.

 

Understanding when child maintenance payments via the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) in the UK should stop can be a complex process. Here’s a comprehensive guide to help you work out when child support stops. Child maintenance typically ends when a child reaches 16 or up to 20 if they are in approved education or training. This includes full-time non-advanced education (such as A levels, Highers, NVQs up to level three) and certain approved training courses. However, if a child is in a paid apprenticeship and only attends college one day a week, maintenance payments should stop. If a child leaves school in the summer, they still qualify for child benefit until the 31st of August following their 16th birthday, meaning child maintenance continues until the end of August. Most CMS cases pay at least a month in arrears, so payments often extend into September and October. Payments can continue up to age 20 if the child is in approved education or training. If the child starts working more than 24 hours a week, payments may stop, but if they are in education while working, payments generally won't stop. Maintenance will cease if the child marries, enters a civil partnership, or receives certain benefits in their own right. Other scenarios where child maintenance stops include:

1. The child dies.
2. The paying parent dies (liability ends, but arrears may be claimed from the estate).
3. The parent with care dies (maintenance may be payable to the new caregiver).
4. The child goes to prison or a young offender's institution, or is sectioned for mental health reasons for 12 weeks or more.
5. Both parents agree, and the case is closed by the receiving parent.
6. The child or parent with care moves overseas (exceptions apply for armed forces, diplomatic service, or certain education).
7. The child has their own child and claims child maintenance.
8. If the child over 16 refuses a DNA test
9. Or if the child leaves education and then returns after their 19th birthday, child benefit cases cannot be reopened.

One thing that does not stop child benfit is bankruptcy. Bankruptcy does not stop child maintenance arrears or liability, though some parents have attempted to pay arrears with a credit card and then declared bankruptcy.

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