Can I claim CSA even though my children are over 18?

December 6, 2012

Hi, my name is Louise. My daughters are 19 and 20 and have not seen their father since he left and disapeared when they were 4 and 5 yrs old. The csa could never find him apparently and ive never recieved maintainence.

After 2 attempts i did finally get granted a divorce after tracing agencies failing to find him also. The daft thing is they couldnt find him even with his national insurance number i gave them ??? Yet my daughter only a few months ago managed to find information about him when she put a advert in a lost and found site asking if anyone had seen him in an area we’d heard he could have gone to live and work.

The response was from a lady he had had a relationship for a couple of years with saying where he was working before they split. Could i still give this information to the csa and still have a case even though my girls are now over 18 ?

Comments

  • carol says:

    Hello Louise. How have you managed without the fathers support all of this time?

  • rach says:

    i think it is highly doubtful that the csa would beable to do anything for you at this stage. under csa1 rules the maintenance would have been due from the first contact with the nrp and unfortunately they were never able to make this first contact with him as apparently they couldnt trace him. your best bet would be to obtain your data filles from the csa (it costs £10) just to see what if anything they did and whether they did send any letters to a “confident” address for him. I wouldnt get your hopes up too much though as they are and even more so were then totally incompetent . your children are now too old to qualify for maintenance as it stops when they are 19

  • Alice says:

    the age for a qualifying child is rising to 20 on 10/12/12 so you may still be able to claim for your younger daughter. She must still be in full time non-advanced education and you must be claiming CM for her.

    If the CSA did make initial contact with their father and a case is already open it may be that there are arrears due on the case and if you have information on his current address and/or employer they may be able to collect the arrears

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