CSA want money, but other debts come first!
In 2001 my marriage broke down after many troubled years and psychological problems suffred by my wife due to childhood abuse at the hands of social service employees. The breakup was amicable and my ex-wife and I had a financial arrangment where I paid her around £300 per month and I also took out a personal loan to take on all the family debt that was in joint names and put it all into my name to reduce the financial burden on her. It is not a fantastic amount of money but on an annual gross salary of £17,000 it is not an insignificant amount.
We also shared the social responsibility of bringing our children up to be responsible in society and still do, although they are now all out of full time education. Because my ex-wife was and still is on benefits, some 9 years later the CSA became involved and interevened in our financial arrangement. They made a calculation on the old system and came up with a much higher figure that I could not afford and against which they would not accept part payments.
They refused to accept that the personal loan was for the benefit of the family and would not take this into account when assessing the amount I had to pay. Some time after the CSA became involved my new partner and I started a business together to try to increase our income to meet our financial committments, this was an ill advised venture into the licensee business and resulted in us having a significant mortgage to pay. The CSA have apparently ignored this as well despite being sent the mortgage details and also failed to recognise my Council Tax liability. In 2009 the DWP took me to Court and obtained a liability order, it came to light that although my assessment had been made on the old system my file had a new system reference number. I put it to the Court that the CSA had assessed my payments on the old system, with higher payments, but had not made any allowances for any outgoings as per the new system.
The CSA when questioned could not provide an answer as to the accuracy of this and when asked how long it would take to check the figures and re-submit them if necessary the CSA representative did not know. As a result the Courts asked them to go away and re-check the figures, but in the mean time decided that a liability was due and granted the order for just over £20,300. The magistrates then assured me that the CSA wouldn’t be able to increase it. I also told the Courts and the CSA that my income was dramatically reduced from what it once was after the CSA made an attachment of earnings on my last job in 2007 for 38% of my Nett pay, which left me with insufficient funds to pay travel costs to work. As a result I had given up my £27,000 per annnum career and was now a self-employed driving instructor. By comparison my weekly income is approximately £154 per week or £8000 p.a. and I no longer pay thousands of pounds in tax and national insurance per year, so the country is worse off all round.
My partner and I are currently struggling to avoid losing our home due to mounting debts and I am still unable to meet my CSA liability. I also invited the CSA to check HMRC tax records to check my income for the last 9 years to enable them to check the assessment, rather than take my word abouit my income, since they had been so keen to inform me that they had the power to do this anyway.
It is now 12 months since the liability order was granted, I have not heard anything from them and have made no payments because we are just barely surviving and managing to eat. We have debts for gas, electricity, water, council tax, the loan I took out after my marriage broke up, a mortgage, CSA and I don’t think for one minute that the CSA has gone away.
My worry is that they do not allow any extra time to pay the debt, there is no right of appeal other than to the CSA tribunal and this debt will hound me to an early grave.
4 thoughts on “CSA want money, but other debts come first!”
Leave a Reply
Your dates are really confusing.
When did the CSA first contact you?
The CSA first contacted me in either late 2001 or early 2002, if my memory serves me correctly. I see the error in my statement above. The correct statement is that the CSA took me to Court and obtained a liability order in 2009 for approx £20,300. The original assessment as a little over £29,000 but I had paid about £8,800 according to the CSA. Between the start of CSA involvement my partner and I had tried to earn more money by taking on a public house in 2004 (big mistake), this landed us with a bigger mortgage by 2005. I then went back to full time employment, in 2005, with a large supermarket on a salary of £22,500 which grew to £27,000 by 2007. At this point the CSA placed an attachment of earnings order on my salary at 38% of my net pay. Because of the 30 miles per day travel to and from work and lack of suitable public transport this left me with insufficient funds to actually travel to work and I terminated my employment. I then took up self employment as a driving instructor, earning just over £7,000 per annum, but because my fuel is work related it is unaffected by the CSA. Since obtaining the liability order the CSA have not contacted me, but were asked by the magistrates to check the figures of my assessment. I am not holding my breath. I fully expect to receive an unpleasant and distressing letter in the immediate future as it is almost a year since I was in court. I hope to return to working in accountancy again locally to earn a better salary, preferably one that I can walk to if necessary, because in all honesty I would rather pay the bill than have it haunt me to the grave, but to do that I need the means to pay it.
Sorry for any confusion and thank you for the interest.
If the CSA contacted you in 2001/2002 then you must be on the ‘old’ system as the ‘new’ system did not exist then.
Did you keep them updated as your income changed, otherwise the previous assessment remains in force?
Initially I did, until we (my partner and I) became self employed with the pub, then it became complicated. The CSA wanted us to forecast what our income would be, for an assessment, and we didn’t know how to do that given that you cannot get the figures for a pub when you take it on and we had no experience or reliable knowledge of how much to expect. After 14 months we had lost a lot of money, which would be a matter of HMRC tax records, but also shortly after this our accountants went into liquidation and we have no access to our accounts. I then went to work for the Supermarket where they did the attachment of earnings, again they have access to this information and were informed that I had gone back into full time employment. When we went into the pub we informed them of our mortgage commitment and got no response. I also informed them when I became a driving instructor and have heard nothing. I have only recently completed my accounts in January for 2008/9, but I have also almost completed them now for 2009/10, with the obvious exception of March. However, with the lack of confirmation that I have ever received I don’t hold much faith in them doing anything.
I did point out to the courts that I was on the old system and also had a new system reference number and I suggested that there could be some crossover in the two systems regarding the assessment and failure to provide allowable expenses. With regards our income the CSA officer took great pride in informing me that they could check my income with the HMRC, I wish they would get on wwith it, it might show degree of efficiency on their part, instead of me trying to prove what I have earned when I already work 6 days a week all year without a holiday, for next to nothing, and could do with the one day a week off to unwind. To be honest I long since past the point of caring, its quite depressing really when the only reason you have to continue is that it would upset the people that you care about, and that care about you, that keeps you going. If I can succesfully get back into my old career path and go back to earning a decent salary i would happily just pay them over the next couple of years, its getting back into that market that’s the hard part because it takes quite a lot of motivation, and all too often I read about the CSA moving the goal posts.