MEP (Alberta) and S7

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stripes

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Situation:

50/50 shared custody (S9), divorce order stating S7 expenses will be shared in proportion to income. In practice, I pay all S7 out of pocket (sports, birthday parties, etc). Ex hasn't paid his share in over a year. In our separation agreement (and now divorce order), it was stated that we would reconcile S7 twice a year, January and June. Ex refused to reconcile in January because he was mad that the divorce was still in the court system and had not yet been signed by the judge (apparently I have magical powers to slow the Court of Queen's Bench to a halt ... but I digress).

We're coming up on the June date for reconciliation. I'm seeing signs that ex is once again going to refuse to pay his share. By my calculations, he owes me $1000-$1200. (He may have his own S7 expenses which would offset this, but he won't provide me with any details of what he's spent). I'm trying to figure out options in case he does refuse to reconcile S7. It's not a huge amount of money, but I don't want to let this go on indefinitely. This is the first year our divorce order has been in effect, so I'm concerned about setting a precedent of letting things slide.

I'm wondering about two options:

1) Can I refer this to MEP? We have an "MEP paragraph" in our divorce order. It's pretty straightforward - the divorce order says expenses are shared in proportion to income and must be reconciled on or before June 15, I have receipts and a spreadsheet with expenses, as well as emails asking to reconcile which receive no reply. By MEP standards, this is not a lot of money owing, so I don't know whether they deal with amounts of this size. It also sounds like a lot of paperwork, and a long wait until it gets resolved.

2) One idea which has been suggested is that if he doesn't pay his share of S7, I start deducting a specific amount from the offset S3 I pay every month ($138), and holding the deducted money in a separate account. I keep doing this until either the amount I've held back equals the amount I estimate that he owes me (based on the information that I've got) or until he follows through on the reconciliation, after which I give him the amount that I held back.

This option is not really letter-of-the-law, because S3 and S7 are supposed to be separate, and it feels a bit like sinking to his own level of being a jerk.

However, the one thing that he pays attention to is money, so this might be a case of having to fight fire with fire. Our incomes are very close (as shown by the small table offset) and we both earn a bit over $100K, so there would be no financial hardship incurred by me holding back, say, $75 per month.

Any opinions? Or are there other options I haven't thought of?
 
I'm curious what you are considering s7.

With both parents making over $100k, I'm not sure how sports, birthday parties, etc are extraordinary. Normally these costs are covered with cs. With offset, usually the parent who does them with the kids during their time pays for it themself.

If you do have s7 bills that are not being paid, then you can go to court and show the monthly/yearly expenses and ask that a set monthly amount be ordered so that you can take it to MEP and get it enforced. I wouldn't stop cs payments as those are separate.
 
I agree with HappyDays... With such high incomes S7 should almost be none existant... What kind of numbers are we talking here? Birthday Parties certainly do not fall into S7 expenses and anything other than medical and babysitting/daycare should be agreed to by both parties before the charge takes place.
 
Honestly, I am in agreement with the two other comments. If both of your incomes are close and over 100K you are not going to see anything probably. In fact, other than the other party's costs you may get ordered to pay for bringing the matter to mediation.

S7 is "special and extraordinary" expenses. With the income levels you are citing, you are not only possibly going to infuriate the mediator (or any judge) with your request you may get handed costs award against you.

I caution you, as the others have, to seriously consider why you would even create conflict over the numbers you are talking when the total household income is over $200,000.

There is nothing "special" and "extraordinary" for a birthday party, sports and possibly even daycare when the total gross income of both households are over $200,000.

Do you really want to create conflict over $2000? Conflict that could cost you well over that in legals?

To spend 8 hours on legals (my rough estimate) at 250-500 an hour that birthday parties are not "special" nor "extraordinary" and it would not be wise to request payment under Section 7 of the Child Support Guide Lines for that. Nor would the request for sports expenses. I would even go so far as to say daycare would be something that would really upset the justice when considering the total combined gross income of $200,000.

"Penny wise, pound foolish".

Good Luck!
Tayken
 
I agree that these are silly expenses to have as S7 when the combined income is over $200 000 - but that's what's written into our divorce order (birthday parties, after school care and sports are specifically mentioned as extraordinary expenses) so this is where the potential conflict arises. Knowing what I know now, I would have requested these be taken out. Unfortunately, hindsight is 20/20. Too bad we can't have divorce do-overs.

I make sure that all these expenses are agreed to before being incurred - e.g. when our daughter was interested in playing soccer I found out how much it would cost and asked him if he was all right with sharing the cost before signing her up (all in writing) so there's no question of whether something is or is not covered by the S7 paragraph of our divorce order - the problem is that he just won't pay what he's agreed to pay.

I'm definitely not interested in going to court for small change; I'm wondering if there's any other way of getting him to comply with the order, or if I should just continue to suck this one up and count myself lucky that I don't have more serious problems.
 
If those items had been left out of the agreement, you would just be paying for soccer and not mentioning it.

So don't mention it.
 
I'm guessing this is a somewhat polite way of saying "suck it up". Which is probably good advice. This is not the hill to die on.

Thanks for giving me some perspective. It's hard sometimes to distinguish between the really important issues and the ones which are primarily irritants (and in the grand financial scheme of things, not major). I'll continue to send the spreadsheets with S7 expenses as required in the divorce order, but if he continues to refuse to pay, I won't expend a whole lot of energy on it.
 
Like you said, it's really not worth bringing it to court over such small amounts.

I'm really surprised it was made into a court order with such high incomes. I'm assuming it was an agreement you two came up with that the judge endorsed?

If you stop sending him the requests then it would be hard to bring it up later. Keep sending him the spreadsheets when you're supposed to and ask for payment when you're supposed to. Know that he won't pay, but eventually when the amount is decent or you're in court for a different reason, then you can bring your claim.
 
HappyDays, yes, that was what happened. I know now that this level of detail for S7 is unusual, but I was naive at the time, and trying to be very thorough. If I had it to do over, I might suggest that we alternate years paying for extracurriculars. Costs get split in the long run, but year by year there's no need to exchange receipts and haggle over reimbursements.

I just received another truly stellar email from him about child support. He argues that our daughter stayed with him 16 more nights than she stayed with me in 2012 (this may be true, I wasn't checking off days on the calendar, and I did have one extended business trip). Therefore, in May 2013 I now owe him a per diem for each "extra" night she spent with him last year, because of the additional cost of feeding and entertaining her. He calculated this per diem to be $684 for 16 nights, based on child support rates at my income. Pretty pricey babysitting for his own child.

He also believes I should be topping up my child support every month with 1/12 of the amount which he expects I will receive in next year's tax return for the AED. He isn't eligible for the AED any more because he remarried, but he believes he is entitled to it nonetheless, via me. He has calculated my current "arrears" for the 2013 AED at some insane figure.

Needless to say, none of this is to be found anywhere in our divorce order (which is less than two months old), any other agreements we have had, the FCSG, nor, as far as I can tell without being a lawyer, any relevant law on this or any other planet. There's a strong whiff of financial desperation coming off this. My response is consistently "My responsibility is to comply with our divorce order. If you wish to alter the order, please have your lawyer contact me".

As Elvis Costello says, I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused.
 
Is that the kind of person he really is, or is he just nitpicking in retaliation for his perception that you are nitpicking him?

Unless he manipulates you into doing all the registering and paying for all the kid's extraordinary activities, I would just assume that he's got some of his own, and that the reconciled amounts would be more or less a wash.

I would send him the summaries every six months, carrying forward any balance and politely requesting his expenses be added to it, thus satisfying your obligation to report it to him, and then don't worry about collecting. Twice a year emails as agreed to in your order can't possibly be perceived as harassing him.
 
I actually do pay for all the extracurriculars (with one exception - he registered her for swimming lessons this spring). Fortunately, they're not ridiculously expensive (swimming, plus gymnastics, soccer, a few other activities). I could refuse to keep paying, but on reflection I would rather suck it up and pay and risk not getting reimbursed rather than risk of my daughter missing out on the activities she loves. Gymnastics in particular is the brightest part of her life.

I'm going to keep preparing and sending the spreadsheets twice a year, but not expend a lot of energy on chasing this. Perhaps someday he will follow through on his obligations; perhaps we'll end up in court on something else and I'll add this into the mix; perhaps something else will happen. In any event, the accounting trail will be clear.

As to the personality question - it's not so much nitpicking as the type of person who thinks rules are for the little people. Yes, he agreed to the divorce order; yes, he signed it, but really, he doesn't have to abide by it if he doesn't feel like it.
 
Just keep documenting it and sending him updated spreadsheets like you are supposed to. Each time you do, add a new worksheet for the current, and keep all the prior ones there as well.

Just keep asking him to pay, that way if he decides to haul you back into court, you can ask for ALL the retro to be paid in a responding affidavit.

It's not worth the effort otherwise. Keep it for a rainy day.
 
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