Child Moving Out - Attends local University

[SomeGuy]

Good day folks... after a 2 year hiatus, my hell starts all over again as the kids are off to University....

I've been pouring through the site, found a TON of useful tidbits, but haven't been able to find an answer to one current question:
- If a child attends university locally, but signs a 12 month lease and moves out of the house to live with a bunch of other students, is that considered "moving away for educational purposes"?

All got to do with the nuances of the SA and "child residing with the custodial parent".

For the record she got house, kids, and a disproportionately large share of my financial assets. She's never worked, and is eligible for significant support "until death do us part" (i.e. 30-40 years from now). The SA was written by lawyers.. for lawyers, and contains enough ifs, ands and buts to make anyones head spin.

And also for the record... I'm doing *everything* within my power to ensure the kids get through school with no debt... unfortunately "Ex" and "financial sense" cannot be used in the same sentence.

Thanks for any input

[nfc4ever]

Is the lease in your child's name? You cannot have two primary residences.

Courts will look for the lease in the child's name, plus utility bills, and if (s)he has changed drivers license and health cards over to the new address. These would be indicative of a new address.

[rockscan]

Child Moving Out - Attends local University

You could do this two ways:

1. You continue to pay full cs and *hope* that your ex gives the money to kid.

2. You pay your cs directly to the kid.

Normally if a child moves AWAY to school, cs is reduced for the months they are away and you pay your proportionate share of their living expenses (i.e. Rent for the year is 3000, parents pay % of 2/3 so xx% of $2000). It doesnt sound like your ex is reasonable though so you may have to work with kid. If you live in a province where enforcement is available to your ex, she could file to have cs paid to them (FRO or MEP).

I think you should talk to your kid first. If that goes nowhere, you talk to your ex. If that goes nowhere you continue to pay full CS and then your portion of tuition books equipment etc. NOT living expenses.

Just my two cents. Others could have different views. My partners lawyer told him post secondary is very very gray.

[SomeGuy]

Thanks both for your quick input. After years of trying to keep both kids out of all the financial BS, I have actually been discussing this with them in detail already. They get it.... so it's definitely the path forward.

rockscan - when you say "2/3" above... does that imply the child is expected to pay 1/3 of the living expenses?? I was under the impression the calculation was quite a bit more convoluted than that....

thanks!

[rockscan]

Like I said about the lawyer we're dealing with, post secondary is a gray area. For the most part, 1/3 is an acceptable calculation. It gets muddy with parents who have high incomes, parents who dont have a balanced income split, one parent is on social assistance etc. If you are already working with your kids, you can discuss with them what they can afford to pay but they ARE responsible for a portion of the costs.

The calculation is still NET COST. Which means the total cost after all other things are taken off like scholarships and tax benefits. Since your kid lives away from home, you would give them the tax benefit but still expect any scholarships come off the cost.

Have they applied for funding? If youre in Ontario and kid has applied for OSAP, they are eligible for the "up to 30% off tuition" PLUS grants. The 30% comes off the calculation for what you pay but the grants they get from Ontario/Canada are attributed to kids portion. So lets say tuition, books, rent, food comes out to $12000. 1/3 is theirs ($4000). If they are awarded $3000 in grants, they are then only responsible for $1000 of their costs for school. Makes sense?

At least this is how I understood it from dealing with the lawyer we saw.

At this point, if you can work directly with your kids you will be in a better position to avoid conflict and support them the way you want. You can also pay the school directly helping them further.

Definitely discuss it with your kids and work with them on a budget, how they will pay their portion, what costs they will have, keeping receipts etc. its a good learning experience for them too!

[SomeGuy]

thanks again for your detailed answer.

Yes they have applied for OSAP... but they did it with their Mother so I don't have inside access to the how all the grants work, etc. (I begged them to fill out the forms with me, so I would understand.... but she can be.. uh.. persuasive).

Her income is negligible so I understand that should go a long way to getting the "up to 30%" portion of the tuition.

I have full access to their Uni accounts so I should see the OSAP money as it comes in.

I know the "30% off Tuition" concept... and I know there is a provision for "loans"... but is the "grant" a third concept? i.e. is it a true grant or does it have to be repaid? Do you know if it needs to be applied for separately? or is it automatic when filling out the OSAP forms.
Gawd, I wish I was doing this along with them.... trying to learn this stuff second-hand is a real effort.

Just to throw a monkey wrench into things... they've each received a 5 figure "gift" from their Grandma... and ex refuses to allow them to put it into the education.

Anyway... absolutely agree that working with them on a budget is a great learning experience.... thanks again for your help

[nfc4ever]

the expectation on the 2/3 is that the parents are to pay 2/3 of the cost of the child going to school. So add up tuition, textbooks, and living expenses and then 2/3 of it should be split between the parents.

What I've seen vary is some people indicate that the 2/3 is split based on income of parents, and others where its split evenly

My lawyer has also indicated that the whole post-secondary thing is very muddy.

[rockscan]

Theres an OSAP estimator site. You can plug in the numbers yourself. They ask for the school, program, parents income and an estimate of how much kid expects to make. The calculation breaks it down into each separate grant. The 30% off tuition will be shown on their tuition receipt from the school (it breaks into two installments by semester). Do the estimator and it should give you an idea of what the award will be.

Remember too that you dont pay anything without full disclosure. Your ex can be as persuasive as she wants with the kids but without a proper receipt of what was PAID (not what was charged), you dont pay anything. So if the kids decide to let mom control things, they will be involved very quickly in the financial bs. They need to make a choice, either work with you both openly and honestly or let mom control things and be stuck paying everything until mom plays by the rules.

As for the split, if you both can agree to an even split, do it. But if your % for your portion is over 60%, your ex wont agree to reducing your share.

[rockscan]

Child Moving Out - Attends local University

Also adding...they dont have to use the monetary gift. Theres a case called Lewi v. Lewi where this was discussed. Each kid got 20 grand from grandfather. One kid bought a car the other went away to school. The cost of gas and repairs were still included in dads portion of expenses and the kid that went away had to pay a little more for expenses but the judge stated that financial gifts should not be used to replace one parents contribution to the expense.

Bottom line is youre still responsible but you get full disclosure, you calculate the net cost and kid has to pay a share.

[rockscan]

Heres the aid estimator site. You should have your ex's line 150. Just plug in the info and it will give you an estimate. They could get more or less. In my partners case, his kid gets less because his ex makes $$$. If kid spent the summer with him, grant money goes up.

https://osap.gov.on.ca/AidEstimatorW....xhtml?lang=en

[SomeGuy]

ok thanks... I know there are other OSAP threads here so I'll keep poking around them to get a better handle on things. I actually played with the OSAP calculator, but couldn't properly digest all it's output... I'll try again.

So far, I've been in charge of paying (it's RESPs so I used that to pay year 1 of kid 1). This year both are in Uni (one @ $25k/year) and I know the RESPs won't last all 4 years so I'm trying to plan ahead. She's done the OSAP application... but if it's all "automatic" from there that really helps. And our split is 70-30... but I can deal with that.

Anyway... you both did address my original question... with a whole lot of bonus info thrown in... really appreciate it!! Thank You !!!!

[SomeGuy]

Also adding...they dont have to use the monetary gift. Theres a case called Lewi v. Lewi where this was discussed. Each kid got 20 grand from grandfather. One kid bought a car the other went away to school. The cost of gas and repairs were still included in dads portion of expenses and the kid that went away had to pay a little more for expenses but the judge stated that financial gifts should not be used to replace one parents contribution to the expense.

Bottom line is youre still responsible but you get full disclosure, you calculate the net cost and kid has to pay a share.

I keep trying to thank you and end this this thread but you keep bringing up interesting new stuff

I already did a scan on Lewi v Lewi... I don't expect the child to replace my contribution, however ex is insisting the kids pay *nothing* and I am responsible for everything. My interpretation was that the kids must use a portion of their "fiscal capacity" (even gifted money) to pay THEIR share... which is looking like 1/3 based on the above.

Anyway... looks like I've got some power research to do for the next few days..

[rockscan]

Child Moving Out - Attends local University



This is a screen cap from the aid estimator I just did. The details I put in were: four year english degree at Western, kid makes $4000 for the summer ($10 an hour, 25 hours a week), lives with divorced parent during summer, moves out for school, parent makes $30000 per year.

In the screen cap it lists the federal and provincial loans and 30% off tuition and the federal and provincial grants. The grants are considered kids portion of expense. So the 30% off tuition (in this case $1780) comes off the total owing by all three of you. The total grants awarded in this case ($1208 and $791) are kids so that goes to their portion.

Note that it also shows the tax credit. That could help you too. As long as the kid is getting the tax credit it isnt an issue but if kid gives mom the tax credit, you are supposed to take that off the cost too.

This is a hypothetical case though. I also dont know what the student opportunity grant is. Could be more money to add to the kids pot.

[nfc4ever]

Interesting, I ran the same thing for my situation, but using Western's engineering school.

I'm still new to all this, so I had a couple of Q's:
if Costs are 17k and OSAP is 14k, is the remaining 3k what gets divided between the parents, plus the living expenses of the child because in this case its likely cut and dry that the OSAP covers a lot of the costs.

Also is there a spot I'm missing where Rocks and I should be listing the NCP's line 150?

[SomeGuy]

But are the "loans" automatic?? I mean does just submitting the application mean they will apply the student "loans" to the account? I still have RESPs to use...