Proof of purchase required by non-resident parent!

July 31, 2008

In most cases the Child Support Agency are making the non-resident parent pay well over the odds. This is bad enough to start with but paying out all this money and finding out it is not going to the children is extremely wrong.

There will be cases out there where the children are going without, walking around in rags because the parent with care would rather spend that money on themselves. This has to be seriously addressed and action taken against these parents if proved.

I was working and paying £60 a week and finding it extremely hard to pay my bills because of the Child Support Agencies unfair assessment. What made matters worse was getting a phone call from a close family member of my daughter. They were concerned because my daughters mother and partner were spending nearly every night in the local bars and clubs. My daughter was being dumped on her half sister from Sunday to Friday and I was told she was sleeping on a couch.

I made sure I knew where she was staying every night by buying my daughter a mobile phone and phoning her every night. It appeared what I had been told was true and I was paying for their recreational habit. Eventually they bought my daughter an air bed to sleep on, so it was nice to see that a little of my money was going to my daughter!

I never let up and phoned her every night until it came to the point her mother and partner took the phone away from her. That didn’t deter and I just called the house phone and eventually I must of got the message over as my daughter was eventually allowed her own bed to sleep in! I also made sure of contacting Social Services to advise them what had been going on. I literally had to put up night after night hearing my daughter crying say she wished it was the weekend so she would be staying with me.

To get back to the point it is essensial that something is in place that allows the non-resident parent to take action if he suspects something like this is going on. The resident parent with care should be made to supply proof of everything they have purchased for the child. If they can’t then their money should be withdrawn and it put into a savings account for the child.

My latest letter to the CSA

July 30, 2008

After years of hell from the CSA this is my latest letter to them as I fight to stay out of prison. My case has been ajourned twice now as the CSA have agreed to give me more time to appeal and also wait for information I have requested under the Data Protection Act. Why I don’t know as you will see from my letter they are adamant they want the money.

I have hidden all names involved.

RE: Liability Order and request for a re-examination of my case

Dear Mrs ***

I am replying to your letter dated 18th July 2008 that I received today from my Local MP Mr ***** ******. I am still far from happy of the way my case has been dealt and would like to address the issues you raised in the above-mentioned letter.

Firstly you state in this letter that you first received an application from Ms ****** on the 8 February 1996. Can I point out that this date was 2 years before my daughter ******* was even born?

You say that you were advised on 29th November 2000 that shared care was no longer in place and that due to there being no change in the nil assessment, I was not informed of this. In my opinion this was gross negligence as it had serious consequences on my assessment from 2005 on. If I had been informed of this at the time I could of informed the CSA of the change and I would not be in the situation I am now.

You then go on to say that when I started work in 2005 you worked my maintenance out on a basic wage of £214.92 a week. This is certainly not the case as when I was first assessed it was based on a calculation of £440 net each week. You also state that I did not advise you at the time that shared care was in place. As I have said above if I had known of the change in the first place I would have done so.

When I lost overtime I informed you that I was in difficulty as my wages had dropped to less than half. This is when I sent you a wage slip for £214.92 and you just blatantly refused to re-calculate my maintenance. Only after several letters to my Local MP ***** ****** did you agree to waver the arrears payment of £5.70 for 3 months. Read more

Just Search SEO CSAHell

July 28, 2008

Since CSAhell.com went live we’ve been climbing up the ranks of Google and Yahoo for child support agency related phrases. This has really helped us to help others who are being persecuted by the CSA, but now we’ve got the SEO company Just Search to take on our SEO work. This means they’ll do their search engine wizardry behind the scenes and makes sure that our website ranks even better for CSA related phrases, and that the CSA themselves become more aware of both our website, and the trials and tribulations of our users.

We’ve only had Just Search working on the site for a few weeks now, and already we’ve seen the difference in terms of traffic that we’re getting.

Thanks to Phil at Just Search for the work he’s done on the site. Now we should be able to help a lot more people in their dealings with the CSA.

New Rules for Arrears

July 25, 2008

I recently contacted the CSA to advise them that my circumstances had changed and that i had a new daughter with my new partner and that i thought this may effect the payments i have been paying for a duagther from a previous relationship.

I had been paying £119.00 a month with a further £25.00 being paid towards arrears which amount to £6,700 pounds. I had up until this point been making monthly payments with missing any for the past 8 years. My daughter is 17 and a half years. Now although i know i had to pay my arrears i have been paying the amount the csa advised me to pay and have never missed a payment in all this time.

After the change was notified to them they put my payments down to £7.71 a week for regular payments and a further £7.72 a week for the arrears. This was all ok’d towards the end of may but because the cutoff date for payments had passed i ended up paying another month at £144.00. My payment was then put down to the new amount for June, in the mean time my ex wife asked the csa to reassess the case.

I was sent a letter asking me for 2 recent payslips and also my mortgage payment details. They said i had 14 days to do this. I sent all the info for them and have just received details of my new payments. My wages have risen by £70.00 a week since i last provided them with wage details 4 years ago so i knew my payments would rise slightly but the new schedule is asking for £42.00 a week which does not include any arrears payments.

While all this is going on i also received a letter from their debt department saying the arrears agreement was not good enough and that because the debt would not be paid of in 2 years they would be seeking a liability order from the court so as to be able to take further action. I phoned and tried to tell them that since the debt department letter had been written i had been reassessed and my payments had risen to £168.00 a month and that i would be willing to pay a further £32.00 a month for the arrears. I also explained that when my regular csa payments cease in 17 months when my daughter reaches 19 that i would be willing to then increase these payments. This was still not good enough for them and i was told unless i could pay back or reach an agreement to clear the arrears they would seek the liability order.

I then asked if this was the same as a CCJ and would it effect my credit rating which at the moment is good. They said it wouldn’t and that it just meant they could pass the debt to their bailiffs. So although I’m willing to pay what i can afford and have not missed a payment for nearly nine years I’m stilling going to have to go to court and end up dealing with a bailiff. Is there anybody else in this boat? This all because the CSA have been instructed to try to recover all outstanding debts and arrears within 2 years. This is probably because of all the bad press they received a few months ago about their performance and now its us that are going to pay for it.

please help – csa say my partner owes £43,000

July 23, 2008

My partner had a good relationship with his two children from his ex wife, when he first split from her 2001 (she was having an affair),he had a very well paid job and was paying her £150 per week for about a year, until he lost his job, which then intern he had some sort of mental breakdown. He was unable to return to work until 2005, when he got with me. (His ex also started another new relationship after another affair).

In the four years that he was`nt working he continued to see the children every weekend, she was happy not receiving any moneys as she was in a new relationship in which she had another child, (she failed to mention that she had put in a claim to the CSA when they first split,(when he earnt good money) which she never cancelled, and he knew nothing about) He then moved in with me and my 2children from a previous, things were great, all the children got on really well and formed good relationships (step brothers and sisters) (did I mention that we were all friends, and that’s how I met my partner, she was fine with this).

Then my partner and I decided to have a baby together to complete our family unit, things were great whilst I was pregnant, but as soon as our daughter was born, god how she changed, stopped our contact with the kids, filled the children’s heads with all sorts of rubbish, anyway we moved to a bigger house after I fell pregnant again, then the letter came from the CSA in 2007, which was the first my partner heard, saying they wanted £15,000 in arrears, and £120 per week, we filled in the forms stating the moneys we get, and that we just couldn’t afford to pay that sort of money, we heard nothing back until march this year, shortly after the birth of our son, stating that his ex had put in a new claim (she is now married), they don`t take her husbands income into account but they take mine “child tax credit and child benefit,” which is what the government has assessed us in needing to live off.

Her husband earns over a thousand pound a week, my partner bearly gets 600 a month. So they assessed us on our moneys and decided that he has to pay 25% of his (our) earnings working out at £66 per week, which unfortunately we still cant afford that. The CSA doesn`t care about the fact we have 4 children to support on a low income, that’s NOT there problem I was told in a phone conversation.(Also I discovered that if I went back to work to cover the moneys taken by the CSA, then they would take even more off of us, so basically this has stuffed up my plans into returning to work).

I then contacted our local MP, they contacted the CSA on our behalf, stating that they must be able to reduce the payments as we just cant AFFORD it, we then received the letter, saying they`ve been contacted by the houses of parlement, and this is there new result, we still have too pay £66 which they are now going to take direct from his wages and we NOW owe £43,000, (we obviously upset the CSA by trying to go above there heads) which if we don`t pay he faces prison, losing his liecence, and the bailifs coming to take MY things (as he had nothing when he moved in with me), this is having such a negative affect on our family, I`m not saying he shouldn`t pay anything, but how can the CSA legally put our children into poverty, to benefit the other 2, when there family unit is well benefitted already, please is there someone out there that can help, my parnter has talked about ending it all……I don`t know if he means litrally, he is now depressed as am I, please can someone offer some advise……….

CSA want to father to pay £900 for child he lives with

July 12, 2008

This is another of those classic CSA mistakes. Now they’re trying to force a father to pay them £900 for his child, so they can give it to the mother. That seems fine, but he lives with them, they’re still together! So the CSA want this guy to take out his money, hand it over to them, so they can give back to her, and subsequently him.

In true CSA style they’ve refused to accept any mistakes have been made on their part, and have even lied about letters they’ve sent. They’re threatening to seize the father’s bank account, passport, driving license and even send him to prison, if he doesn’t pay what effectively amounts to himself.

You can read the story of this latest child support agency cock-up in our CSA advice forum.

CSA force infertile man to pay for kid that isn’t his

July 10, 2008

In a story indicative of the child support agency and their myriad of mistakes, they’ve forced a 54-year old man to pay over £8,000 in maintenance for a child that isn’t his. Not only is the girl not his daughter, he’s infertile and cannot have children. Despite having a doctor’s letter and a DNA test showing the girl is not his daughter, the CSA threatened him with bailiffs and county court judgments, pressurising the man into paying.

The man was forced to take medication for epilepsy in 1986, which has left him sterile. His wife fell pregnant in 1992 with a baby girl, that he believes was due to her having an affair. They soon separated after she fell pregnant.

He claims the CSA have been out to get him for the last four years, despite it being impossible that he is the father.

I was married for 25 years and when my wife fell pregnant it was a real shock. She said I must have done it in my sleep, which is ridiculous.

Although I knew I was not the baby’s father I brought her up as my own.

When my wife and I split in 2002 I wanted to stop the CSA payments.

I started an appeal in 2004 but despite me telling the CSA of my health problems, offering them doctors’ letters and sending them a DNA test proving I was not the father, they still made me pay.

It is £41 a week and I have already paid over £8,000.

The Department for Work and Pensions gave their usual response to the complaint:

We cannot comment on individual cases.

This is one of the worst stories I’ve heard to date from the CSA.

Need help fighting the CSA?

July 1, 2008

If like many other people you are having trouble with the CSA, one of the members of our CSA advice forum may have the solution.

If you are, like myself, being screwed by the CSA because you been caught up in the “old” system and find yourself and your family out of pocket by some considerable amount – then it’s time to take action rather than spout hot air.

Have a look at what they have to say and see if this applies to you. You can read the full thread here.

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