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Neutral Citation Number:	2010 UKUT 355 AAC
Reported Number:
File Number:	CCS 1184 2010
Appellant:	SJ
Respondent:	CMEC
Judge/Commissioner:	Judge E. Jupp
Date Of Decision:	29/09/2010
Date Added:	19/10/2010
Main Category:	Child support
Main Subcategory:	housing costs
Secondary Category:
Secondary Subcategory:
Notes:	Reported as [2011] AACR 18 Child support – maintenance assessment – housing costs – interest on mortgage to buy out ex-partner’s share in home The parties were the parents of two qualifying children who lived with the parent with care, their mother. The non-resident parent, their father, was liable to pay child support maintenance in respect of the children. The mother appealed against the assessment, challenging the amount of the father’s eligible housing costs to be included in the calculation. The father had increased the mortgage on his home by borrowing £40,699 to buy out his ex-partner’s share in the property which was thereafter transferred into his sole name. The First-tier Tribunal found that the extra borrowing was necessarily incurred to enable the father to buy out his ex-partner’s share in the home he occupied. The mother appealed to the Upper Tribunal, querying whether the increase was eligible under paragraph 4(1)(a) of Schedule 3 of the Child Support (Maintenance Assessments and Special Cases) Regulations 1992 as being necessarily incurred for the purpose of purchasing, renting or otherwise securing possession of the home, citing CCS/1418/2003 where money raised on mortgage to satisfy a court order on divorce was held not to be an eligible housing cost in the absence of evidence that the decision to raise it in that way was other than a matter of choice. The Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission submitted, citing R(CS) 12/98, that if the father could continue to secure occupation of his home only by purchasing the interest of his ex-partner in that home, then such borrowing would fall within the scope of paragraph 4(1)(a), and would fall to be included as an eligible housing cost. Held, allowing the appeal, that: 1. in the present case (unlike the situation in CCS/1418/2003) evidence should be available as to the nature of the arrangement between the father and his ex-partner and the degree of compulsion, or otherwise, upon the father to make satisfactory payment to his ex-partner to secure possession of his home. As it was unlikely that there would be many cases involving this point where at least some evidence could not be made available, the approach in R(CS) 12/98 was to be preferred to that in CCS/1418/2003 (paragraph 15); 2. as stated in CCS/1418/2003, paragraph 4(1)(a) requires that the possession should be in doubt or at risk before the expenditure is incurred. The tribunal did not go far enough with its enquiries and thus failed to make adequate findings of fact as to whether the father borrowed the additional sum for the purpose of securing possession of the home (paragraph 16). The judge remitted the appeal for reconsideration by a differently constituted tribunal.
Decision(s) to Download:	[2011] AACR 18ws.doc