If you owe child maintenance

Summary

The CMS will have made a ‘regular deduction order’. This means the CMS can tell your bank or building society to deduct money from your account at regular intervals to pay off the arrears. The CMS can use this order to collect current maintenance payments, arrears or both. They’ll usually also add an enforcement fee of £50 to what you owe. In some situations you won’t have to pay that fee, like if you’ve changed bank account. Talk to an adviser if you’re not sure if you have to pay it. The CMS can take money from your account either monthly or weekly. The bank or building society can charge you up to £10 for each deduction they make. You must be left with at least 60% of your net weekly income. Your net income is the money left after you've paid tax and National Insurance. If you’re paying the default rate of maintenance, the deduction won’t be more than £80 per week. You’ll be on that rate if the CMS didn’t have enough information to calculate how much you should pay. There won’t be any deduction if it would mean your account will have less than: You can ask the CMS for a review of a regular deduction order at any time. You might want to ask for a review because: * your gross.

Key information

• •your gross weekly income has dropped - that’s your income before tax and national insurance have been deducted
• •the amount of child maintenance you pay has changed
• •any decision the CMS make after you’ve applied for a review of the order
• •there’s no money in your account
• •you’ve agreed to pay another way
• •if the CMS were making deductions from a joint account, they’re satisfied you’ve stopped putting money into that account
• •you don’t keep to the agreement to pay another way
• •there’s now enough money in the account
• •you start putting money into the joint account again
• •you’ve paid all the arrears
• •you’ve closed the bank account used
• •the order has lapsed for more than 6 months

Practical guidance

• •Source: [If you owe child maintenance](https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/family/children-and-young-people/child-maintenance1/paying-child-maintenance/if-you-owe-child-maintenance/)

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