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  • extra expenses - who is responsible

    so have a 50/50 split with kids, I pay the kids expenses such as registration fees, school supplie etc. Son is going to hockey tournament during ex week with kids, she asked me if I would take the other kids and I agree and take two days off work (march break) The day she is leaving she askes me for $ to pay for son's 2 day hotel, food and gas expenses? I was never even asked if he should go to tourny or if I could take him. I do not think I should pay for this. I paid the monthly CS which is high and feel maybe this is not an extra expense I am on the hook for. thoughts? thanks,

  • #2
    Ordinary expenses come of child support.

    Extraordinary expenses are split separately proportionate to income.

    In a 50/50, you should each pay for ordinary expenses equally while he's with your (clothes, transportation, recreational activities, books, toys, school trips, etc). If there is one thing one parent ends up paying for regularly, the other parent should pick up something else. You should be able to work it out like mature team-mates.

    For extraordinary expense, it's always debatable where sports fit in. If you were together and you would have expected him to play hockey, then it's an ordinary expense and you pay it 50/50. (If this was a sole custody situation, payment would come out of chld support). If he is playing at an elite level and there is high expense (travel, hotel) that you wouldn't have normally expected, then this is a section 7 expense.

    It's always arguable, what is extraordinary for a family with a 50k income is ordinary for a family with a 100k income.

    When you have 50/50 shared custody, then it should in theory be a little easier to work this out. You should be splitting everything, and extraordinary expenses you are probably splitting 60/40 or 70/30 (proportionate to income).

    The argument shouldn't be about who gets to go with him. He is going, that should be fair, and the cost should be split fairly. The less you argue about it the better. Ideally you should talk about splitting this stuff ahead of time, like do a budget in August that will cover the school year. You should already know right now if you are paying 50% for hockey or 70%. You should have known for the last year how you were doing it.

    You say you are already paying the kid's expenses and monthly support. Do you pay full table amount, or the 50/50 offset amount? Does the other parent pay any expenses for activities?

    While it sounds like it's about time she paid for something, I'd also say you should have a system worked out for things like this, and do a budget each summer ahead of time. If you don't have a system, then problems like this are bound to crop up.

    Comment


    • #3
      I think you mis-read the question, Mess - or maybe I'm misreading it or your reply. Not sure, lol.

      My understanding is he asking if he should have to pay expenses for the second son (not the hockey player) to go on the trip as well when the plan was for the second child to spend that time with him? It is a bit confusing though....

      Son is going to hockey tournament during ex week with kids, she asked me if I would take the other kids and I agree and take two days off work (march break)
      So he was expecting to have the other non hockey playing kids suring that time, but then....


      The day she is leaving she askes me for $ to pay for son's 2 day hotel, food and gas expenses? I was never even asked if he should go to tourny or if I could take him.
      So....he WASN'T asked or expected to take the second child? I'm confused now!

      Comment


      • #4
        The way I read it, he was asked to keep the other kids at his house, on what would be her scheduled days, while she took the hockey player on the trip.

        Then at the last minute, she also asked him for money to pay for the hockey son's trip, hotel, etc.

        But maybe I'm wrong, the OP would have to clarify.

        Comment


        • #5
          Oh I think it's me! Oops... I kept reading "The day she is leaving she askes me for $ to pay for 2nd son's day hotel, food and gas expenses?"

          ...leading me to believe she had suddenly decided to take another of the children along and asked the father to pay his expenses.

          When it actually says:

          "The day she is leaving she askes me for $ to pay for son's 2 day hotel, food and gas expenses?"

          Implying that he is objecting to paying for the expenses of the hockey player after all. IMO, he should pay for some of the costs however it should have been brought up when it was in the planning stages, not the day of the trip.

          Excuse my mistake, I even re-read the original post a few times! Must be this persistant headache, lol.

          Comment


          • #6
            Here is my take on the whole situation.

            If you were both still married to each other, the expenses would have come out of a family account. I am a believer that once you sign up your child for a team support you are agreeing to the extra expenses and making a commitment to the team. Hockey tournaments are normally scheduled in advance.

            While your ex wife could/should have given you much more notice that she would like to split the expense with you. Maybe she had an a big car repair/house repair that caused her to be short, and who knows maybe she tried to get some "extra". I don't know your ex wife just speculating.

            You stated that you took a couple of days off to be with the other children for March break. Normally I tend to leave 5-7 days of vacation time just in case something unexpected comes up so that I wouldn't have to take a day without pay. Did you loose pay by taking a few extra days off?

            What have you done in the past with out of town tournaments?
            What is the income in both households? Who has more disposible income.

            BTW it is probably cheaper to leave the other children with yourself than more meals out and she might have asked for more money.

            Hope your son has a great tournament!

            Comment


            • #7
              The Special/Extraordinary expense categorization can be tough to sort out. As Mess said...it's sometimes tough to determine how to share the costs of sports and other activities. Below is from the Federal Child Support Guidelines.

              http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/pi/fcy-fea/lib-bib/pub/guide/step7-etap7.html

              Special expenses are:
              • child-care expenses that a parent with whom the child lives incurs as a result of the parent's job, illness, disability or educational requirements for employment,
              • the portion of a parent's medical and dental insurance premiums that provides coverage for the child,
              • the child's health-care needs over and above that covered by insurance (for example, orthodontics, counselling, medication, eye care and other items) that exceed $100 per year,
              • the child's extraordinary expenses for extracurricular activities,
              • the child's extraordinary expenses for primary and secondary education or other educational programs, and,
              • the child's expenses for post-secondary education.
              The term extraordinary expenses means:
              • expenses that are higher than those that the parent requesting an amount for the extraordinary expenses can reasonably cover, in light of that parent's income (including the child support amount), or
              • expenses that aren't higher than those that the parent requesting an amount for the extraordinary expenses can reasonably cover, but that are extraordinary taking into account:
                • the income (including child support) of that parent,
                • the nature and number of the programs and extracurricular activities,
                • any special needs and talents of the child,
                • the overall cost of the programs and activities, and
                • any other similar factor that is relevant.
              For sports, if this isn't a cost to support a "special need or talent of the child" and "the overal cost of the programs and activities" is not extraordinary...then this cost should be split 50/50 (because you pay Child Support and share custody of the children). Most of the time, regular league fees and registration are not extraordinary costs...neither are costs associated with a weekend tournament.

              However, if the weekend tournament was for an elite hockey program because your sons are particularly gifted hockey players...it could be considered extraordinary. And/or if the cost of this elite hockey program was thousands of dollars...you'd both have to agree to split the cost ahead of time of course...but the high cost would also likely categorize it as "extraordinary"...and if so, the cost would be split proportional to your income amounts.

              Hope this helps...

              Comment


              • #8
                Food, lodging are covered in CS and you could argue that you have already paid her for that expense. If she were to have taken that child on a vacation rather than to a hockey tournament would you have been expected to pay? You have already paid for your share of the tourney costs. Should you be expected to pay twice? What do you expect when you have to take him to the next tourney?

                These kind of expenses are something you have to agree on in advance. In the long run they will probably equal out. To be fair if you decide to pay or not, the same strategy should be applied in the future.

                Has she cut the hotel costs in half? She should be expected to pay for herself.

                Comment


                • #9
                  thanks everyone, big help in processing all this for me and for learning for the future as this is sure to come up again, HD
                  PS; they lost in the finals and he had a blast - the most important thing of all.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Glad he had a good time, and that squabbles between his parents didn't prevent him from going.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Exactly...as hard as it is...kudos to you for keeping the conflict away from your kids.

                      Comment

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