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CSA advice forum » NRP Discussion

1. Jellybean
   Member
   
   

   My husband has just received a letter from CSA looking for details of his salary/wages. My husband split up with his son's mother 9 years ago and has always paid child maintenance direct via a standing order to her. We have joint custody of his son who's now 12, although his son actually lives with us the majority of the time.

   The reason my husband stopped the child maintenance payments in October was because his son was going into high school this year and he wanted to go to the same school as all his friends the only way this could happen was if my husband does a 100 mile round trip in the morning and again in the afternoon to take him to this school - this is costing him £600 a month! His ex partner agreed that it would make sense then that as he had this added expenses that she didnt, that it was fairer to stop the child maintenance payments but now she's gone to CSA!!!

   I feel it's grossly unfair given that his son lives with us the majority of the time, my husband has more expenses to pay out to allow his son to go to the school he wants, we pay all his sons football fees, boots, school uniforms, school fees for trips etc but it seems that this doesn't count and that his ex partner 'could have a case'.

   Everyone always feels sorry for the mothers but my husband is a very hands on dad and yet is still getting penalised and this is despite her living with her current partner and them both working full time!!

   Posted 4 months ago #

2. Mark148
   Member
   
   

   The CSA are going through the natural stages of a case that has been opened with them and are gathering all the information they require to do an assessment. They are a machine without emotion and will only work on what is contained within the rules and guidelines of their policy and procedures. They will not care about your circumstances so you will have to read up on their guidelines and prepare yourself accordingly.

   With all the information you have given I cannot see the maintenance figure being very much. Please open the link below and pay particular attention to pages 18 and 28:

   http://www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consum_dg/groups/dg_digitalassets/@dg/@en/@benefits/documents/digitalasset/dg_198849.pdf

   It is totally unfair and you MUST prepare yourselves thoroughly and give them all the necessary information that they require. Record all calls and ensure that all correspondence is recorded delivery and keep a file containing everything until your case is eventually closed.

   It does appear daunting and it is emotional but you need to try to put those emotions to better use in preparing your case. Good luck, read up, never bury your head in the sand and any other issues then put a post up.

   Posted 4 months ago #

3. Jellybean
   Member
   
   

   Thanks for your reply Mark - I've got another query that I wonder if you can help with/or anyone else for that matter.

   My husband has now sent a 3 page letter to the CSA details down every little detail and enclosed his last two months wage slips, my husband was working away for 7 months solid at the beginning of the year, he had to do this to secure a 5 year contract working away for 3 weeks and at home for 3 weeks (he only gets paid for the weeks that he works however) so based on his current salary his annual salary is looking at around £36,000 per annum but the CSA are saying that for contracts like this they just tend to look at the year to date figures for his salary - obviously this is going to be unfair as it's going to take into account when he was working away constantly for 7 months which makes it look like he's earning alot more than he actually is (well double if I'm honest) surely they can't do this..... I've asked the CSA if they could not just contact my husband's employer who will be able to verify his current contract and annual salary.

   My husband has no problem paying something for his son, although he stays with us most of the time and we have more expenses but at the end of the day he doesn't want his son losing out because his mother spends most of her money on her other son.

   Why should she get to benefit from my husband working his backside off at the beginning of the year, when this is not an accurate account of his current wage??

   Any help on how we should proceed would be fantastic

   Thanks

   Posted 4 months ago #

4. SamuraiJack
   Member
   
   

   If your child spends the majority of the time with you then you should inform the CSA of this and then you are registered as the PWC and the other parent is the one who pays. What we do is keep a year planner on the wall and make a note of when our son is with the NRP. The court agreement was that the NRP would have access to our son 3 nights/week, but on average it's 1-2. The longer you can keep track of the nights that are spent with you the better, and update the CSA whenever there's been a change in how much time the NRP spends with the child. Another thing you should know is that the CSA only counts the nights spent with a parent, not the hours in a day, and that they always round down. So for example, if the NRP saw the child 3 nights a week for every week of the year apart from 1 week where she saw him for just 2 days, the NRP is charged as if she only saw her child 2 nights/week.

   Posted 3 months ago #

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