How can I get my children’s father to pay?
My ex husband has left me with 4 children. The divorce agreement meant that he had to continue to pay for the children until they were out of full time education.
He married the policewoman that he ran off with and last year retired from the army as a Warrant Officer taking a large pay off. He has decided that he cannot get a job and so has stopped paying any maintenance.
However, with his pay off and money from his wife they have bought a large detached house. He has stated that he has no money to pay for the upkeep of the children.My eldest, a son of 22, is an auxiliary nurse, my daughter aged 21 is studying to join university. My third, a boy of 16, has just started an apprenticeship and the youngest is at school aged 12. I have two part time jobs as a school dinner lady and as a cleaner.
I cannot afford to keep the children fed and housed even with the help of benefit. How can I put pressure on the children’s father to pay his way rather than buy the children, computers?
5 thoughts on “How can I get my children’s father to pay?”
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If he doesn’t work and has used his money to purchase his primary residence what does he live off of ? If it’s his wife’s earning then you could have a bit of a problem as normally it would be 25% of his net taxable income. The CSA cannot touch the equity in his primary residence. They can enforce sale if there has been arrears or debt in payments built up from a previous assessment.
In the past you could have gone back to the court but now after one year either you or your ex could ask the CSA to do an assessment and this maybe a nil assessment in his case. If he has assets that are over £65,000 that is not equity in his primary residence then they will treat that as an income earning 8% of which you would get 25% net so 2% and that’s on the whole amount not just the part over £65,000. You would need to apply for a “variation” and I think you would need to provide some evidence.
The problem is that the CSA are rough types of people and generally very rude and if you were to trigger an investigation against your ex it may just wind him up to the point where he doesn’t buy anything such as computers for the kids, so you need to be sure your going to win otherwise you could end up making a bad situation worse. Lawyers won’t touch it but there are organisations like the NACSA that maybe able to look at your case before you start and assess the likelihood of a successful outcome.
Good luck !
given the age of your children you would only be able to apply for child maintenance for the youngest child who is still in full time education, but even opening a case if your ex partner is not working would not mean payments would be made. An NRP is assessed on their income (which can include CTC if these are paid to their household) so if he has no income the assessment would be nil.
If he returns to work the case would re-assessed on his income.
Jane:- Is your ex not in receipt of an army pension?
I would contact my MP and join the facebook groups Child Support Agencies Failings and others for advice and support. Good Luck.
Jane Taylor, please contact me as I know someone who works for the CSA and could ask them their advice.