CSA close the case then chase us for missed payments!
CSA did a child benefit check in september at our request. They informed us on two occasions that the case would now close as my husband’s ex-wife was no longer claiming. they confirmed this on two occasions. Now, two months later, they call us to ask why he has missed two payments!! How can this be allowed?
They are demanding money after they made a HUGE mistake. Now we have to find the money and also re-budget for the payments for the next twelve months.
I just cann0t believe the CSA get away with this kind of behaviour. I am typing this a 4am in the morning as I can’t sleep because of the stress any contact with the CSA always causes me.
Incidently we have bever been late with payments in the 8 years since he seperated. It is always their mistake but they always treat us like dirt.
11 thoughts on “CSA close the case then chase us for missed payments!”
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Have you got this information in writing?? If so send letter of complaint with copys to them and ask for a proper explanation. Also copys to your Mp and ask him to help. Also get a copy of your data file from Newcastle, cost £10 to get it. There should be info on there as well.
So has the case closed? When are they saying the payments are from?
If you think these payments are incorrect please see your mp and never speak with csa on the phone, always do it in writing so you have a paper trail.
Good luck, we are finally free of this shambles who have made our lives hell.
The case apparently is now still open. They are ringing later in the week to discuss how much we are in ‘arrears’, and how much the payments are going forward. They have admitted that we were told the case was closed, but say we still have to pay. To add insult to injury she got his pension lump sum this week, and we have to pay the csa out of his monthly army pension. How much more do we have to give her?What I despise is that his son is 18. Regardless of whether he is in education or not I thought that in this country an 18 year old was classed as an adult. Like our English language (which has its own strange rules) our Law is inconsistent.
Where do we stand if we don’t pay? Why are we always hounded? Why does no-one step forward and stand up for people like us and say that this treatment has to stop? The CSA and any contact with them makes me physically ill.
When your were told that a Child Benefit check had been done and your partner’s ex is no longer claiming CB was this followed up by a case closure letter? If not it sounds like the case has not been closed.
If you partner’s payments were up to date when the case was due to close it would be held by the client services section of the agency, if they have not progressed the closure and your partner has stopped his payments (which he would reasonably do if he was told the case was closed) then the case would continue to charge until the action was taken to close the case – if this is what has happened then the case will have automatically moved itself to the debt enforcement section and automatically generate a late payment task, which is why the agency would have contact your partner.
If your partner’s ex’s CB has ceased then the case must be closed. Once the case is closed the system will automatically adjust the figures on the account – this would mean that your partner would most likely not have any arrears to pay.
If however the CB has not ceased your partner’s ex will still be entitled to claim maintenance until the child is 19 (this is rising to aged 20 in December 2012) as long as his son remains in full time (over 12 hours a week) non-advanced education.
If there are arrears or on-going regular maintenance and your partner does not make payments the agency can impose a Deduction of Earnings Order if he is currently working or a Deduction of Earnings Request against his army pension – they can legally take up to 40% of his income towards his arrears
I am well aware now that the case has not been closed. On the two occasions we were told it was closed we were told to expect a letter within TWELVE WEEKS (the usual timescale for the CSA to do anything involving the NRP.
I did not come on here for a lecture from a CSA employee on what will happen to my husband if he does not pay. Not paying is not the issue. We have always paid what is ‘due’. The issue here is that the CSA get away with monumental mistakes all the time, for either party, but nothing ever happens. No one is ever held to account.
We now have the difficult task or re-budgeting after getting wrong information (twice with the promise that a letter was on its way) and also have to come up with what the CSA have the cheek to call ‘arrears’ (which they are the cause of).
Although they HAVE acknowledged that they made a mistake (it is on our file that they told us twice the case would be closed) not once have we been given an apology and a chance to work out where the hell we are going to find the money from to make up the arrears.Even this morning they phone my husband demanding payment (a figure that makes no sense as we have in theory only missed 2 payments). My husband has quite rightly demanded a written breakdown of the ‘arrears’ which we have been promised will be sent.
So if a CSA employee is reading this, don’t waste your time commenting on this if you are going to give me a lecture on what happens if we don’t pay. That is not the issue. Stop jumping to conclusions about NRP’s. All cases are very different. Some NRP’s are arseholes. Some aren’t. Some PWC are arseholes. Some aren’t. And it is not for you to decide on any case what you think of the parents.
‘ Helen – apologies if you took me reply to be a lecture or that I was judging your partner or any other person involved in any case, this was not my intention. I believed that I was explaining how the system worked and why your partner is being told he is in arrears when in fact he is most likely not – this is a situation which has arisen by the agency not closing the case when it should have done.
If you re-read my reply you will see the comment If you partner stopped paying … you will see that I did in fact include (which he would reasonably do if he was told his case was close).
In respect of the comment about Child Benefit still being paid this is a point of law – this becomes and issue where you have a case where CB has been extended to the child’s 19th birthday year but the child leaves education and the PWC does not inform the CB office that they are no longer eligible for CB anymore – the law states that if CB is in payment then the CSA case must remain open unless the PWC asks for it to be closed. CSA staff can only advise the NRP to contact the CB office and report suspected benefit fraud.
I again apologise if you took my comment about the CSA being allowed to impose a deduction of earnings order against an NRP as being aimed at your partner, I did not intend this to imply that his payments were not up to date at the time he was told by the agency that the case had been closed – this was simply giving you an example of what the agency can do IF there is on-going maintenance or arrears on a case. As you say your partner’s payments were up to date at the time the case was to be closed then although the system shows that he owes arrears as it will continue to charge the last MC weekly until the case is closed down on the system – in your partners case the arrears showing on the system will be cancelled out when the case is closed back to the date the CB ceased being paid.
A breakdown of all charges and payments can be done by sending your partner a client statement (if the case has been open for many years it may be that he receives a number of letters as the system will only produce a statement with a certain amount of entries on it) as your partners payments were up to date at the point that the case should have closed then the only outstanding amounts will be for after that date – the arrears are what I refer to as ‘technical arrears’ and these will self-adjust when the closure date is applied.
Interesting. My case ‘closed’ in 2011, that is the assesment against me stopped at that time, my youngest child reaching the qualifying age and going off to uni. I’m still fighting an (illegal) assesment as I was not working for the qualifying period, the csa continued to assess me as though I was still working claiming I had not informed them, even though they knew from another government source and my employer but failed in their duty of care to follow their own procedures such as the rule in Kerr or issue a CSA191 form.
I asked my current barrister if they could come back subsequently and ask for more money (as I’m sure I will win the lotto soon) and he said no.
My MP is involved and they told his secretary that my file is still open! I’m confused, if my case is closed then why is my file open? If my case isnt closed and thats why my file is open then why am I ‘out of time’ to appeal to tribunal?
Any thoughts on this would be welcome.
on new rules cases where the case is ‘closed’ as in there is no on-going liability but still has outstanding arrears the case status is set to ‘open but withdrawn’ .. the case status will only change to ‘closed’ when all outstanding arrears are cleared – either by the NRP paying them or if the PWC signs a declaration stating she has received the amount by direct payment from the NRP which allows the agency to adjust the arrears by the amount the PWC says she has received (if a pwc decides that she does not want the arrears collected she can sign a declaration to have the debt adjusted even if she has not actually received it – she cannot change her mind at a later date and ask the agency to re-instate the arrears)
I am not sure what the procedure is with Old Rules cases
Thanks Alice that helps a bit.
Are the alleged arrears owed to the PWC or to the Secretary of state?
Ask for documentary evidence of the ‘alleged’ arrears by way of a full account breakdown.
Make an appointment with your M.P. and make them aware of the issues, and ask for their intervention.
Finally, they may offer for you to take your case to a tribunal. In my experience it may be rigged, in that the CSA use the excuse that the money is owed to the secretary of state, and they dismiss your case, as the adjudicator has no jurisdiction regarding arrears.
They will try to have you, every which way that they can, and because of that it may be worthwhile seeking specialist advice!
John on November 9th
“Finally, they may offer for you to take your case to a tribunal. In my experience it may be rigged, in that the CSA use the excuse that the money is owed to the secretary of state, and they dismiss your case, as the adjudicator has no jurisdiction regarding arrears.
They will try to have you, every which way that they can, and because of that it may be worthwhile seeking specialist advice!”
The csa is a DWP department, the so called ‘Independent’ case examiner is DWP, the appeal tribunal is DWP. The courts are powerless except when it comes to following csa (DWP) instructions, judicial review can only look at points of law. European court of human rights wont get involved in ‘tax collection’ matters. Its all a great big con. About time we had our own ‘arab spring’ in this country.