child support agency hell

News

Many people come to this website looking for advice on how to avoid the CSA and avoid paying the CSA. The truth is that if you’re employed you have very little option as eventually the CSA will go to your employer and hit them with a deduction of earnings order (DEO) which will take money from your salary before your receive it.

There’s nothing your employer can do about it because the CSA will threaten them with bailiffs if they don’t comply.

However, there is a way you can avoid the DEO from the CSA, and that’s to be contracted. If your employer will allow you to go self employed, so you submit your own self assessment tax return, the CSA cannot issue a DEO. You deal with your own tax, therefore they have to go through you.

This way you can claim for travel expenses to and from work in your self assessment, and other costs as well, such as equipment. Your ‘take home’ pay would be much lower and the CSA would only be able to claim less from you.

If anyone has any other ideas on avoiding paying the CSA please let us know below, we’d be glad to hear from them and would like to share them with everyone else who is having trouble with the CSA.

Advice

I’ve been fighting the CSA now for 16years.

My marriage broke up in 1991.

I’m a UK national, and became a victim of the CSA in 1993, when I received a simple enough looking form from the agency asking about my employment details, income, address, etc after the break-up of that marriage from which I have one son (who was 10 in 1993). Having nothing to fear, as I was still paying EVERY bill at the former marital home as if I was still living there (mortgage, food,Electricity, gas. household ins., car, petrol..the lot), I popped it in the mail and forgot about it while I continued to pay these bills as well as find/fund a flat for myself.

In December 1995..out of the blue…I received a bill from the CSA for some £5.5K plus an assessment that I should payan ADDITIONAL £400/month on top…this for a child who lived large parts of the week with me and, who ultimately LIVED PERMANENTLY with me. (It later transpired that I had come to the attention of the CSA because of a false claim made elsewhere in the benefit system by my (now ex) wife, ….despite her having THREE jobs herself. !)

From December 1995, there followed what can only be describedas the mother and father of wars of attrition on me by the agency, who at various intervals, calculated, re-calculated, then calculated again my “liability” for child maintenance…maintenance that I did not, do not, and never have owed. This period was compounded by the fateful Saturday morning post where I received not one, not two…..etc, but no fewer than 6(six) separate envelopes from the agency with EACH alleging child arrears (varying in amounts up to £16,000) and none of whom agreed with the other !!!!

One can by this time perhaps imagine the effects that the stress surrounding such ALLEGED debts …to a powerful and draconian government organ…was by now having on my health, both physically and mentally, but regardless of what I did ,said, or to whom I made representation at the agency, this mindless dragon of state was not deflected from it’d blind intention to steal my money.

I was of course by this time,engaging solicitors, writing to my MP etc in order to seek respite from the agencies claims, but in the interests of brevity, these came to be of no avail.

Nonetheless, and quite unexpectedly, a letter was received by me one day whereby the CSA actually recognised that their performance had “fallen short of standard” and that, as a consequence, and without any request for compensation from me, they arbitrarily AWARDED ME the sum of £100 for my trouble. This however, proved to be a false dawn, inasmuch as the CSA STILL contended (without proof) that I was still liable for a £16,000 debt for alleged child arrears. This merely resulted in my redoubling of my efforts to have the agency both “explain” both their calculations and their actions, and while engaged in telephone conversation with a member of their staff, I accidentally learned of their intent (never intimated to me) to “arrest” my salary from my employer. Now, quite apart from the financial difficulty such action would have begun, I realised that there would soon be a very serious question re my financial affairs such as would be difficult to explain to my employer who in the normal course of events trusted me, on a daily and on-going basis, with the safe management of literally MILLIONS of pounds worth of his money and assets…nonetheless, and by the skin of my teeth, I was able to persuade the CSA to defer their intended action. By this time, I was of course in receipt of some £100 of the AGENCIES money and, following discussion with my solicitor, we decided to pay the CSA the monthly sum of £10, along with an attendant monthly letter stating that such monies were being paid without ANY admission of guilt or liability, and without prejudice. These payments were continued by me up till and including January 2001, by which time my son was 18years old, and outwith the interest of the agency. I then advised the CSA that as far as I was concerned that unless I heard from them, I would regard the matter as being closed.

It was also clear that by this time, and purely on account of the huge stress placed upon me by this unwarranted pursuit, that my health was in serious decline and with the huge assistance of both my GP and a regular visiting psychiatric nurse, I narrowly avoided suicide on a number of occasions.

Nonetheless, it was clear to all who knew me both professionally an socially, that I was no longer fit to continue working, and by the end of 2001 my employer discharged me with a medical pension, and I have not worked since.

By now, my dealings with the CSA had seemingly finished, and I went about the task of slowly recovering at least SOME elements of good mental health, to the extent that, in 2005 I re-married, and ultimately moved to live in retirement in France.

Indeed that might reasonably have seemed to be the end of this sorry tale but, on the 5TH June 2009 and with NO COMMUNICATION OF ANY KIND WHATEVER from the agency in the preceding 10…yes 10…years, I again received from the agency a letter (dated 27th May 2009) informing me that they had in fact implemented a Deduction From Earnings Order on my monthly medical discharge pension, in recompense of the “alleged” debt to them of £950…a figure that figured nowhere in the dozens of calculations down these many years.

I now find myself battling in the Scottish courts (whereI last lived in the UK) to have the CSA’s theft of my money returned to me. This of course results in a return of all the stress to which I was subjected all those years, and involves me in a great expense (and with money I do NOT have) to engage again solicitors to represent me (and my own travel and sustenance costs from france to Scotland) in fulfilling my serving a warrant on the CSA for the rightful return of all monies illegally seized by this government department.

The case will be heard in early August 2009, and I am full of dread and concern, not at the justice of my case (my conscience is clear on my actions in this matter at every stage) but at the possible return to those black, black days when my will to survive these allegations and actions will be tested yet again. Frankly, I have fears that should I fail, I will not any longer have the mental strength to recover again.

Will any /all fair -minded people out ther wish me well??……..or am I destined to be merely the latest victim of that long list of those who have fallen victim tomost evil and draconian of government bodies, with huge powers that mean they are in many ways ABOVE the law for the rest of us.

I hover between hope and despair….and will go to my grave secure in the knowledge that I am NOT GUILTY of any offence surrounding the financing of the care of my dear, dear son who, above all, gives me just a trace of a spark to go on and see this ordeal through to conclusion.

For anyone still reading thus far…my sincere thanks for your forbearance…and please help in any way you are able to revoke the evil powers f this unjust and unnaccountable government body.

Mistakes

i have paid for my sons (twins) with no default , up until the point of there 16th birthdays , however although they both left school 2 mnths before that & both did not go to college and took up employment working togethor with the same employer , i have constantly been harrased by the csa over non payment , to which i have been passed from pillar to post.

Each time after explaining my case , and always the same outcome , you owe us money. My case is closed and still no better off , all because my ex continued to claim even though they were working. One of my sons wrote to them backing up my claims but to no avail , they keep telling me we will sort it out , but then after a few months i get a phone call & its back to square one , they do not seem to be interested in the facts of this case from my side , only that i owe them and they want paying.

Now im scared they will arrest my wage or even freeze my bank , and i do not think that i should have to pay this , as my ex was clearly pulling the wool over there (csa) eyes. I have a new baby and commitments , and cannot afford to pay this but im hitting my head against the wall , cause they will not listen.

One of my boys even left home during this period so was no longer under parentil control , but the csa were never informed of this or even the fact they both were working was never declared. How can she get away with this , and i can be penilised for her lies?

Complaints

Today was the court case. after 3 years of hell from the csa and the woman who accused me of being the father of her twins. This woman was spurned by me and found a more than willing ally in the form of the csa.

With her insistance i ended up with a ccj, a 2nd charge on my property,a liabilty order for 16k,several bailiff threatening letters and all the stress of a broken relationship on top of that with my partner (not the twins mother) and all this because at the time i couldn’t afford the dna test fee. three years on after seeking legal advice i paid and had the test done.

It came back that i was not the father. Three years of crap for a womans word and no proof.

To add insult to injury even tough it says on thier web site that you get the money back for the test fee if you are found not to be the father they will not refund it as i was soposed to ask for it in court. this they told me after the court case had ended!

Is there no end to the depths the csa will stoop to get one over on some one? Is it right a man can be persecuted for three years on a scorned womans word? surely the csa could of worked this woman out? she even named the boy ‘luke stuart green’