50/50 share care, ex drinks her benefits yet I pay CSA

July 31, 2012

I recently split up with my ex girlfriend who has been diagnosed with severe borderline personality disorder, as soon as I told her it was over and we can never go back together I was hit with an interdict and a whole lot of false statements against me.

She had claimed I was physically abusive towards her etc. when in reality it was myself that had his nose broke and at one point she attempted to bite my cheek off. after the interdict and a court case along with social worker meetings I returned home and got a phone call from CSA and they were telling me that the ex had opened a claim with them and they were going to be taking 20% of my money from now on. I said but I take care of her little boy who thinks I’m his dad so why should I have to pay so much? The woman then told me that, that was my problem.

I felt I was spoken to in a disgusting tone of voice and left with no chance of reasoning with them. I take the children (all three of them) next to 50% of the time and yet I am still receiving no money from her benefits that she gets to take care of the children. Instead she goes out and drinks every penny of it. How can the CSA take 20% of your money? after tax as a self employed joiner being at 20% then that is meaning 40% of my wage is going out before I receive anything. then national insurance on top of that! where is the justice in that? why is it the fathers that love their children and want them in their full time custody have this government funded group of people that are quite clearly ripping good men off.

I believe the CSA should be doing investigations into those that claim against their ex partners because the ones that are making a claim tend to be angry with their ex partners and have this group of people supporting them.

Then they have womans aid supporting them and men are left desperate for support yet get nothing! I find the CSA a very sexist group of people and I believe that it should be illegal as I am willing to pay for my children through an agreement between my ex and myself. It is a very immature way to get back at your ex simply because they couldn’t handle the violence put towards them and the mental abuse that was and still is being received due to the CSA robbing us of our hard earned money. something needs to be done to make things fair, scrap the CSA

Comments

  • Glenn says:

    Hi Paul,

    If you can prove to the child benefits people that you do have your 2 biological kids for 50% of the time you could apply to get child benefit for one of them. You may have to keep a diary of overnight stays to back up your claim to them. If you can get the child benefit for one of them I’m pretty sure you will pay nothing to her. This is because you will be in exactly the same position as her. I was in the same circumstances approx 8 years ago and paid nothing.

    Also, If that fails I would be trying to get her to negotiate outside the CSA anyway. Being Self Employed is a strong position for you as you are a sole trader and can control your finances without being hit with a deductions of earnings order. If you think that the CSA are asking for too much negotiate a more reasonable figure directly with her. If she disagrees, you could make life very difficult for her. I’m not trying to encourage irresponsible parenting here but Self Employment is one of the main ways of evading CSA. You could quite easily claim £100 a week wages on the books and pay her nothing, and not declare the rest.

    Avoid this type of action and be a responsible father. I wouldn’t have said this at all if the system was fair and 50/50 shared care involved nil payment either way. But it doesn’t. The NRP (95.2% of which are fathers) gets a pathetic 3/7ths reduction. So try the Child Benefit route first. If that fails negotiate with her afterwards to close the case. She needs to be aware that you do have leverage here because of your employment position.

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