Child Support Agency Question

KASM said:
my point was/is that if you decided to have kids you should pay for their upbringing and not everyone else.
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Yes...this is exactly what the OP is saying, that he doesn't mind paying, but why should his partner have to pay? (in case you didn't realise she also comes under the "everyone else" you mentioned in your argument)

Again, since you were purposefully evasive of my question, did you actually read the OP, or just scan it, see the letters CSA and automatically jump in with a post that was completely irrelevant to the question asked?! :rolleyes:

To the OP, listen to area51_for_psx, and imo it will be more trouble than it's worth to fabricate/omit the information they are asking for and will come back to bite you in the rear later on. I know its a <insert expletive here> but hey, maybe you could pretend to be an immigrant and claim it back? :D
 
Didn't realise that I would spark such a debate. I welcome and appreciate all comments no matter how far off topic they might seem.

Let me stress again that there is no shirking responsibility here. It's only fair that we all pay our fair share. I would like to continue to do that. Being split from my ex wife and son is the last thing any decent father wants, however, things became very acrimonious in the end and, I have to confess, it needed the csa to become independantly involved to take the matters in hand and iron it our fairly as far as the financial side of things is concerned.

My only problem is how to deal with the csa without lying or cheating, merely getting my point across that my partner would like to keep her income private and not included. Hell, I don't even know how much she makes.

I may take one of you up on your offer of msn tomorrow as its too late tonight. Any unbiased advice would be much appreciated.
 
KASM said:
my point was/is that if you decided to have kids you should pay for their upbringing and not everyone else.
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And what if the guy did not decide to have kids and did not realize his girlfriend was flushing the pill down the toilet .
I also remember reading in a paper that 50% of the money taken from fathers goes on administration costs :mad:
 
CSA is stupid if you can agree to pay so much a month between each other. (agree between you not pay an amount between you)
 
However much you detest your ex, come to some arrangement with him / her so you pay maintenance directly.

This cuts out the CSA (and their bloody stupid questions) completely.

This has worked well for me for the past 9 years. :)

Otherwise, lie, lie & lie some more. ;)
 
romperstomper said:
I also remember reading in a paper that 50% of the money taken from fathers goes on administration costs :mad:
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Almost, about 40% goes to administration costs AND, here's the kicker, some of those administration costs are towards aiding cases where NRP's are NOT paying their ex-partners any money.

So you can see why, people like me who pay nearly £700 per month, and my ex only gets about £315pm are a little miffed.
 
~J~ said:
Almost, about 40% goes to administration costs AND, here's the kicker, some of those administration costs are towards aiding cases where NRP's are NOT paying their ex-partners any money.

So you can see why, people like me who pay nearly £700 per month, and my ex only gets about £315pm are a little miffed.
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Excuse me for being naive, but surely you're not obliged to pay into CSA? Could you not contribute directly to your ex?
 
Going to Cali said:
Excuse me for being naive, but surely you're not obliged to pay into CSA? Could you not contribute directly to your ex?
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No. This is the problem. I had a perfectly good relationship with my ex why I paid her £250 per month directly into her account.

When she became ill and was forced to leave work, she claimed benefit. As soon as she claimed benefit, the CSA automatically come involved and from then on I have to deal with them and not direct to my ex.

You're not been naive at all, 99% of the 'horror stories' you hear are mostly true. Ironically the CSA is actually quite a fair deal if you're on the new scheme where you're obliged to pay a maximum of 15% of your monthly income, but there are so many people, myself included, who are on the old system and are forced (by court order) to pay anything between 30% - 50% of their wages. And with an attachment of earnings order, there's little I can do about it!
 
Going to Cali said:
Excuse me for being naive, but surely you're not obliged to pay into CSA? Could you not contribute directly to your ex?
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Yes, of course, but both parents would need to come to an agreement on this; this is obviously the best way to resolve it, but unfortunately it is frequently the case where one partner refuses to have anything to do with it, and then the CSA steps in to force the issue.

Edit: or when the other partner is a money grabbing scumbag (scumbagette [mmm....baguette]) and tries to demand more.
 
~J~ said:
You're not been naive at all, 99% of the 'horror stories' you hear are mostly true. Ironically the CSA is actually quite a fair deal if you're on the new scheme where you're obliged to pay a maximum of 15% of your monthly income, but there are so many people, myself included, who are on the old system and are forced (by court order) to pay anything between 30% - 50% of their wages. And with an attachment of earnings order, there's little I can do about it!
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I am on the new scheme, and have been since my ex-wife and I divorced almost 5 years ago.

She recently applied for a reassessment because she'd moved flat and her new one was more expensive! I wasn't bothered until I discovered that the CSA take overtime into account when working out the figure and as a consequence my payment increased from £273 to £463!

I have 28 days to appeal and haven't submitted any overtime this month. When I get my next pay statement I shall send it to them together with my appeal on the grounds they have not assessed me on the basis of a typical months salary. Having spoken to them I am assured this will result in it being reduced to what I currently pay.

Including overtime is utterly retarded IMHO, it's a volitile income stream that can stop at any time. I wouldn't care, but I work overtime to give myself a better future, not to support my ex-wife's social life!

As you can see, their assessments even under the new scheme are far from perfect. Is there any way you can request to be reassessed under the new scheme? Even if that means taking the CSA to Court?

I did read the Government are trying to get rid of the CSA and have parents agree between themselves - quite how that will work God only knows! A mother is going to want the most she can get and the father will only want to pay what he deems to be reasonable. It's a receipe for disaster IMHO :(
 
Well there's a rumour that the CSA is to be scrapped, which is half true. The name "CSA" is been dropped, but is been replaced by a neo-named CMEC (Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission), although I don't think any official rules, thoughts and processes have been made 'officially' public yet.

I do see what you're saying though about the new scheme. I had a similar one myself a while ago where I the company I was working for had a project that had to meet a deadline. I was over the moon when my boss suggested we do overtime to meet the deadline as it meant I could have a bit extra money coming in. But like you, the annual CSA assessment arrived on the boss's doorstep and of course he had to supply my last 3 months pay slips showing the overtime. Same as you, they re-assessed me with overtime on so all that money I earned went straight out of the window.

The one thing I'll never forget, although was a massive kick in the nuts, was a court case last year. I went to court, I think it was 4th December 2006, because the CSA wanted a liability order for about £2500 in unpaid maintenance which I was disputing. I had 100% proof that during the months they were claiming for, that I was out of work - but there's a loophole in the system (I honestly can't remember what section or clause) whereby if you're out of work and you do NOT notify the CSA with a letter from youself, together with a photocopy of the JSA agreement, they can still demand money from you despite you not working! Even the magistrate said she was appauled by the ruling, said it was grossly unfair and looked at the CSA officer and showed her disgust, but apologised to me saying that the law was the law despite what she felt.

But I can't be reassessed under the new scheme because the CSA say that the new scheme is in "trial" and it would be too much work to transfer the 30% cases to 15% cases until the trial has had enough time to mature. Thing is, this new scheme has actually been in place for nearly 7 years so no matter how much kicking and shouting I do, their policy quite simply states that new cases are on 15% and old cases (over 6 years) remain on 30% until further notice.
 
~J~ said:
Well there's a rumour that the CSA is to be scrapped, which is half true. The name "CSA" is been dropped, but is been replaced by a neo-named CMEC (Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission), although I don't think any official rules, thoughts and processes have been made 'officially' public yet.

I do see what you're saying though about the new scheme. I had a similar one myself a while ago where I the company I was working for had a project that had to meet a deadline. I was over the moon when my boss suggested we do overtime to meet the deadline as it meant I could have a bit extra money coming in. But like you, the annual CSA assessment arrived on the boss's doorstep and of course he had to supply my last 3 months pay slips showing the overtime. Same as you, they re-assessed me with overtime on so all that money I earned went straight out of the window.

The one thing I'll never forget, although was a massive kick in the nuts, was a court case last year. I went to court, I think it was 4th December 2006, because the CSA wanted a liability order for about £2500 in unpaid maintenance which I was disputing. I had 100% proof that during the months they were claiming for, that I was out of work - but there's a loophole in the system (I honestly can't remember what section or clause) whereby if you're out of work and you do NOT notify the CSA with a letter from youself, together with a photocopy of the JSA agreement, they can still demand money from you despite you not working! Even the magistrate said she was appauled by the ruling, said it was grossly unfair and looked at the CSA officer and showed her disgust, but apologised to me saying that the law was the law despite what she felt.

But I can't be reassessed under the new scheme because the CSA say that the new scheme is in "trial" and it would be too much work to transfer the 30% cases to 15% cases until the trial has had enough time to mature. Thing is, this new scheme has actually been in place for nearly 7 years so no matter how much kicking and shouting I do, their policy quite simply states that new cases are on 15% and old cases (over 6 years) remain on 30% until further notice.
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I feel really sorry for you then - that is utterly unfair.

Is there nothing you can do at all? I cannot believe you could not be reassessed - how much work is it after all? :(
 
The Mad Rapper said:
I feel really sorry for you then - that is utterly unfair.

Is there nothing you can do at all? I cannot believe you could not be reassessed - how much work is it after all? :(
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Cheers mate, 10 years with this so it's part of my life now!! :D

No, nothing I can do will get me reassessed. Well, that's not strictly true, they will reassess me if my circumstances change, but no matter what, I'll always get reassessed at 30% with anything upto 20% to pay off arrears (where arrears have accumulated due to me not working and/or their interim assessments have been under my actual earnings).

O well, only 5 years, 5 months, 16 days and 11 hours to go before it's over. :p
 
~J~ said:
Cheers mate, 10 years with this so it's part of my life now!! :D

No, nothing I can do will get me reassessed. Well, that's not strictly true, they will reassess me if my circumstances change, but no matter what, I'll always get reassessed at 30% with anything upto 20% to pay off arrears (where arrears have accumulated due to me not working and/or their interim assessments have been under my actual earnings).

O well, only 5 years, 5 months, 16 days and 11 hours to go before it's over. :p
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Yes, I have 5 years left as well, or 7 if my daughter goes to Uni. The only fly in the ointment is currently in the tummy of my ex-GF and he's due in Feb! So just another 16-18 years to go! I do get myself in some situations ;)
 
Tell them she wont tell you

p.s when i get married, have kids etc i dont think i will tell my wife what i do and how much i earn. Either that or find a rich old bird :)

jesus, after reading some of the pages on this thread i might get my tubes tied! (have that you CSA ********!)
 
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Since splitting with my ex-partner almost 8 years ago i have had many dealings with them, including the financial details of my wife.
The emotional turmoil this causes to relationships with current partners is unbelievable. Luckily, i am still married and still see my daughter every weekend but i can see why some people unfortunately are pushed too far with the government/csa showing absolutely no care as long as they get their money.

I have 2 children with my wife. As i have 2 children the csa have stated that i owe them nothing as it would be taking away from my 2 youngest.
Even after this ruling they still sent me a letter requesting £500. When i querried this, stating that you have said i owe nothing they replied that it was sent in the off chance that i may want to pay it!!!.

Also 18 months ago i got paid off and went on JSA. What an experience:(.
The thing to note about this is that regardless whether you owe them money or in my case i dont have to pay. £5 is taking from you weekly benefit regardless. Unbelievable.

Oh well 5 years 11 months to go myself.
 
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