Doing the RIGHT thing doesn’t pay!
March 10, 2012
My husband and I had our Daughter back in 1996…I was at University and my husband worked for £80 a week…We weren’t living together and I was on benefits…My husbands name was put on our daughters birth certificate and our daughter had his name…For personal reasons we weren’t together because of a few family conflicts…the CSA contacted my Husband about paying them for the benefits i was in receipt of as they do…He discussed with them about paying me directly…after a couple of years of being passed from pillar to post they said this was unacceptable as they would have no record of the payments and if i had received them….during this time obviously my husband and I were still in contact with each other…so i was well aware of what was going on…in 1998 we reconciled and decided to do the right thing…my husband moved into the family home, and i stopped claiming all my benefits!
We informed CSA of this and they apparently CLOSED the case!!!!! During the following 12 years we received letters from the CSA saying that my husband had NOTHING 0.00 to pay! In 2009 we got married…Yay for us…or so you’d think….Well I received a call either at the end of 2009 or the beginning of 2010 telling me they were reviewing the case and asking if there had been any changes…
I always thought that if a case was declared CLOSED that’s what it was…But no i informed them during that call that my husband and I had got married…then in 2010 they wrote to my husband informing him that even though they closed the case 12 years ago…they wanted the money back for the benefits i had received from 1996 to 1998…in total near enough £10000…You can imagine how shocked we were! So my Husband said he just wanted to try and get this sorted, because not only had my husband been supporting our own daughter he had also been supporting my son from a previous relationship..whose father had never had to pay a penny!
Instead of having it hanging over our heads…He rang CSA when he explained our circumstances, he was told by the person at the other end of the phone as it had been so long since they had contacted us about this money, ignore it until someone gets in touch with you about it again!…When he received another letter in 2011 he rang them again explaining we didn’t have that sort of money…how we were struggling as it was to meet the bills…he needed to come to a realistic arrangement and wanted to speak to a manager as he was getting nowhere with the person at the other end of the line! Also telling us that the only reason they hadn’t sent Bailiffs yet was because our daughter wasn’t 16 years of age!
They said they’d have a manager call him back as the manager conveniently wasn’t there…we waited…until in 2012 a letter was sent to his employer for an attachments to earnings order! Now my husband has received a letter stating that from 01/03/12 the employer has been told to take £432.33 a month from his earnings until 01/01/2014 when they want £200.29 a month up until 01/02/2014…we can just about find the £150 a month for the council tax…we spend every week just scraping by, by the skin of our teeth…how the hell are we going to survive if they take this from us….they are called The CSA, child SUPPORT agency….WHAT CHILD SUPPORT? we are being penalized for doing the right thing!
And where did they get £10000 from, my husband only wasn’t with us for the first 3 years of our daughters life..he still made sure he saw her and spent time with her…regardless of our own disputes…I can’t understand they never asked us how much we earn or how much our outgoings were..they have no idea what financial situation we’re in so how can they come to the conclusion we can afford that amount every month…
We aren’t just numbers on a screen, we’re real people out here trying to survive on the very little money this government allows us from our own earnings!!!!!
Teresa,
If the agency have not been in receipt of income info to enable a correct calculation, they have more than likely imposed a Penalty Assessment, which may have over inflated the arrears amount.
You will need to establish if a Penalty Assessment is in place. It maybe possible to have it converted to a corrected calculation if your OH can prove the information required.
chall ~ afairercsaforall
Have you spoken to your mp? Do it now…thought their policy was lifting children out of poverty, not putting them in it.
My granddaughter is now over 18 years old. My son has been paying maintenance to her mother for the past 15 years. As his daughter, the result of an unhappy, unmarried is now officially an adult, my son wanted to pay the maintenance to his daughter directly rather than continue paying the money to her mother.
The maintenance is for his daughter. How can the CSA justify stating that he must continue paying the maintenance to her mother? How is his daughter going to learn the value of money and take responsibility for money in preparation to having her own home?
Well you live and learn. I think teenagers should be educated about this system because what bloody state of affairs whereby the state, MPs and the whole government are stealing money from ALL of us.!!!!
what can we do! Protest? Why are’nt people out on the streets shouting about the pure North Korean behaviour of this system and the DWP!!!!!