CSA taking £415 from us every month with no warning

16 thoughts on “CSA taking £415 from us every month with no warning”

1. RT @CSAHell: CSA taking £415 from us every month with no warning: My Partner received a letter on Monday 19th Novemb… http://t.co/42XonefK

2. When a case is opened with the CSA (whether this is opened by the Parent with Care or the Non-resident Parent) a maintenance calculation will be completed based on the Non Resident Parent’s income – an MC letter will be sent to both PWC and NRP. On the NRP’s letter it will state how the money should be paid – either to the agency by direct debit, manual cheque (which covers card payments etc) or by Deduction Of Earnings – it is up to the NRP to ensure that these payments are made. If DD is agreed and there is a problem with the bank and the money is not taken from the account the NRP has a responsibility to contact the agency and make payment by debit or credit card.

   Maintenance is not only payable if the NRP see the child.

   If payment is not received this will flag up with the agency and the case will transfer itself from Client Service section (who deal with complaint cases) to the Debt Enforcement section – due to the number of cases open it may take a matter of months for the case to be dealt with by the DE section. Once a case is being dealt with by a case worker in the DE section the case worker will attempt to contact the NRP by telephone using the contact numbers held on the system – if these numbers are invalid a letter will be issued to the NRP at the address on file. If the numbers are valid but calls are not answered VM messages will be left (they will NOT say the person calling is from CSA, they may say Dept of Work and Pension (very recent) or calling to discuss private business matter – a lot of calls are ignored as they come from 0800/0845 numbers and VM’s ignore due to the ‘private business matter’ – a lot of ppl think it’s cold calling re PPI reclaim etc)
   If there is no response to any VM left a letter is sent. If the letter is sent the NRP is given 7 days to respond, if they respond the case officer will inform them of the amount outstanding and negotiate a figure to be collected over and above the regular maintenance to pay off the arrears. The debt has to be cleared within 2 years, the CSA can legally take a max of 40% of an NRP’s net income. If the debt will not be cleared in 2 years even by taking the max 40% parallel action will be required – this means that the CSA will take 40% (usually by DEO) and also apply for a Liability Order.

   If you partner had a period of not working did he inform the CSA of this at the time? Any changes in a person’s circumstances – either NRP, PWC or QC should be reported to the agency within 7 days of the change occurring. The agency will re-assess and the effective date of the re-assessment will be set in accordance with when the agency is notified of the change. If a change is not reported at the time but is reported at a later time the agency can do a re-assessment but this will not be back-dated to the time the change occurred – with the exception of an NRP going onto or coming off benefit, or where there are multiple changes. With multiple changes the 1st change will be done in accordance with the notified date and subsequent changes will be effective back to the date they occurred (but no earlier than the date of the 1st reported change).

   If your partner has been issued with a DEO set at 40% of his wages and the debt can be recovered at a lower rate but within the 2 year debt steer then he may be able to renegotiate the amounts being taken. This is at the descretion of the case worker who will work in accordance with the debt steer and the direction of the dept heads direction -many things will be considered and the case worker will not be able to agree to lower amount if there is evidence to indicate that the NRP is able to afford to pay the debt off quicker at a higher rate without suffering severe financial hardship (things like if they have credit cards etc they will be expected to pay the debt in full or as in part using their credit availablity)

   If an NRP has not received notifications – letters or calls) and this is due to them having moved house or changed their tel no(s) and them not having told the agency of the changes to their address or tel no(s) this will not be considered as a valid argument by the CSA.

3. Hi claire, welcome to the world of the csa. As you have just discovered it has nothing to do with fairness, there is nothing ‘fair’ about the csa. More and more people (including some csa workers i’ve spoken to) think its nothing more than a big tax collection scam which might explain why so many PWC’s don’t get the money thats collected. You will probably get some reasonable, pragmatic advice from ‘Alice’, cant think of much to add except the usual – dont do anything by phone, keep all communication in writing, send recorded delivery, keep the delivery slips, your partner will need a copy of his Data Protection Prints to see what info the csa have on him, costs £10, ‘Alice’ can give you the address to apply, your MP will be powerless to do anything other than advocate on your behalf. Start a formal complaint now, then go to the ‘independent’ case examiner (another branch of the DWP like the csa), then go to an appeals tribunal (another part of the DWP) time limits apply, then try Parliamentry and Health Service Ombudsman (through your MP after all other avenues exhausted), if there is a point of law in question in your case (get legal advice) you could try Judicial Revue. Read some of the other stories on this site to get an idea of what you are dealing with. Good luck.

4. Alice what law says the debt has to be paid in 2 years?

   why can the CSA take arrears without proving the debt in a court of law?

   what right does a person have to challenge a DEO imposed to collect arrears with no warning or right of appeal.

   Do the CSA take debt into account when applying charges?

   do the CSA ask for evidence before taking the money?

5. Alice appears to only answer questions that put the CSA in a good light.

6. Sadly the CSA are like a cancer that is totally out of control.

7. Quote claire; My partner didn’t work for many years , this will reflect in NI deductions as proof of earnings. The CSA are demanding money for when he was not working.

   Did your OH claim benefits during this period?

   When did the CSA first become involved and was your OH’s ex in receipt of benefits?

   Does the £415 your OH is paying include payment for any arrears?

   Has your OH tried contacting the agency to negotiate the monthly amount?

   Will you qualify for SMP from your employer?

   Have you checked with the Turn2us (link below) calculator to see if your household will qualify for any financial assistance?
   http://www.turn2us.org.uk/benefits_search.aspx

   chall ~ afairercsaforall

8. @ Stuart – there is nothing in law which states a debt to the CSA has to be repaid in 2 years – that is a management steer as they want it cleared as soon as possible.

   CSA don’t go to Court. You have to argue with them about a debt, difficult when they believe they are always right!! As soon as the CSA think you are not complying they will place a DEO on your salary.

   You have to go through the Courts to appeal a DEO. Basically once it is in place that’s it. There has to be an error on the DEO such as your name or national insurance number incorrect before it would be amended. If you do go through the Courts to appeal a DEO then the Court won’t look at the assessment that made up the arrears – Courts do not have powers over that.

   When arrears are involved CSA are allowed to take 40% of your net salary. If you are paying for 1 child it will be 15% ongoing maintenance and 25% towards arrears. You can negotiate on the arrears but not ongoing maintenance. You have to complete an income and expenditure form letting the CSA know your income and house expenses (when we done this I did not supply any info on my income to the CSA as it’s my partners debt).

   CSA will take the money and do not care about your financial situation.
   They have to make their collection rates look good!

9. So the attatchment of a DEO is a clear breach of your human rights, as the criteria for appealing it does not include proof that the debt is owed.

   So no right to a fair trial/hearing.

   dodgy

10. What the Csa really is

    I would suggest to those of you who consider the csa not to be working correctly,to consider this.The csa is operating exactly as planned and that it only appears to be not operating correctly.I consider it to have been designed to operate causing this type of confusion on purpose.The csa has been designed to take cash quickly and to resolve any issues of wrong doing very slowly and this is no accident.

    The proper terminology for this way of
    operating is known as a (one way service system)

    Do any of you really think any MP,s or any one at the csa give a crap
    about child poverty well they don’t. Lets look at a family of four on state
    benefits.The DWP will pay them less cash each month then the csa take
    via a DEO from an NRP.So here we see real picture.The DWP pay the minimum
    they are allowed to pay but the NRP gets to pay more.So this exposes what
    the csa purpose is really for,It is to take the pressure off the state
    welfare bill.

    Any government that is in power and it makes no difference which one!does not
    include the the hardship of individuals in their policies,only in very rare
    occasions has a single person effected government policy and the reasons for
    this are usually in the government self interest.

    I would also suggest the government that gave the csa the ability to
    operate the way it does,had already foreseen the problems that would
    occur but still went ahead anyway.

    These days Governments use the services of think tanks and the services of
    advertising companies,Also they employ the use of projection models in order
    to see the results of their policies well in advance.

    So now you will begin to see that the problems faced by nrp,s such as them
    being left with no expendable income, loosing there homes,nrp,s second family
    being worse off financially then the pwc second family was known about well in
    advance,as it would have shown up in the projection models used.

    Now why would they do this?well that’s
    because the numbers of people suffering hardship
    is still probably within the limits as seen before hand
    in the projection model they used,what we
    have to realize is that government
    use what they see as the bigger picture.Now I have no idea on the
    numbers used in the projection model they used but its
    probably safe to guess that blocks of 500-1000 people
    are used.So any results from the model would be rounded off at that
    figure.The model would also have forecast peoples reaction,such as
    how many would stop working,go abroad etc,until the damage caused
    by the csa goes beyond what is deemed as acceptable,then will we see
    the end of the agency and DEO,s.It could mean the government are willing
    to keep treating people this way until the number of people walking
    the streets with no home because of the csa is greater than 30,000-40,000.
    When the figures go beyond acceptable limits,that is when we will see an end to the current system used.

11. “stuart on November 26th, 2012 12:30 pm

    So the attatchment of a DEO is a clear breach of your human rights, as the criteria for appealing it does not include proof that the debt is owed.

    So no right to a fair trial/hearing.

    dodgy”

    The csa have recently been pulled up on a human rights issue and that case is highlighted elswhere on this site. I suspect there will be many more cases as people get together through sites like this, a couple of things have protected the csa so far, constant changing of the rules, reiance on the costs of taking them to court etc.
    ps ‘Alice’ works for the csa hence the apparant bias though some of the advice given has been quite good.

12. Yes i worked out quite quickly she works for THEM, good at advising the rules but not great at admitting the failings or answering what you can do if maladministation has ruined your life, apparrantly its all our fault for not following their rules as they would not act in such a bad way would they.

    spoke to CSA today regarding my DEO and the breach of human rights after they have ignored me for 2 years on this matter, they would not comment,

    Dodgy

13. I recently got a DOE changed to a Direct Debit. Apart from being in slightly more control of my hard earnt money, are there any more advantages ?

14. brett,

    Was the DEO a voluntary deduction or one enforced by the CSA? -The latter are nearly impossible to get removed.

    chall

15. @brett

    No with Direct Debit they can take what they want and the amount the csa could
    take could change without warning,they could empty your bank account by accident ! (cough cough) and you would most likely never see the cash
    again..

    Deo is safer as the csa have to put what they want to take in writing to the company, The csa have to write to some very big companies and those companies sometimes have their own in house legal departments,The last thing the csa want is those companies asking questions..

    Standing order can be used I think others here will tell you more about that
    option.

16. Despite never having missed a payment, in May 2008 I got stitched up with over £11,000 of arrears where the CSA reassessed me in November 2007 backdating the arrears three and a half years.
    The DOE was enforced.
    I retired last year, albeit at a relatively young age and started a part time job this year. I notified the CSA and my monthly payments increased and I was informed the additional maintenance would be taken from my pension rather than wages.
    For some reason the additional money wasn’t taken from my pension so the CSA contacted me two months ago demanding the money.
    The CSA were either going to increase my monthly maintenance substantially or wanting me to pay the amount in a one off payment.
    Through experience, I would do the opposite to what the enemy want, but as the money would have to be paid in a four month period, I asked if I paid the amount in one off payment the DOE would have to be removed.
    The CSA agreed to this and put me on a direct debit.
    I thought by doing this, I would have about 1% control of my pension/wages. Looks like I made a mistake ?