I am owed maintenance and have to pay ex because daughter has moved in with him

November 8, 2011

I contacted the CSA 8 years ago when i was not receiving regular maintenance money from my daugters father.

The CSA was unable to get regular maintenance payments from him, the only reason, i can assume, is due to the fact that he runs his own transport company and that he can fiddle his accounts to ensure that he doesn’t have to pay.
Since then i have been informed by the CSA that he owes nearly £6,000 in arrears of maintenance payments.

Over the last 2 years my daughter has been residing with her father, after a long court battle, the court made a decision based on who my 12 daughter would like to live with, and due to the fact of years of manipulation, being spoilt and made false promises by her father she made the decision to live with him, which broke my heart.

Since residing with him, he has contacted the CSA and an application made for maintenance payments from me.

I am having to pay £170.00 a month which is taken directly from my wages. This regular payment as well as arrears of £800.00 which was all taken over two months worth of my wages leaving me with no money to pay bills and rent.

I dont deny that i should pay for my daughter, but he made the application for residency, and still owes £6,000 in back dated maintenance payments. Where is the justice?

I have taken a drop in hours at work since June and now on maternity leave and although i have to contact the CSA each month to notify them to change there details accordingly to allow for my reducation in wages, they are still taking the full about of £170.00 since my reduction in hours in June. And have not taken in to account that i am now receiving less money due to maternity pay.

When speaking to them again they cannot give me a reason as to why, and no one calls me back, so i consequently have to call them to get this problem sorted out every month. I am so frustrated i dont know who to complain to and how to get this problem resolved. Their communication is disgusting and they are so one sided.

They state that they are trying to get the arrears in maintenance payments from my daughters father, but do not have any response from him, they do when they need to get money from me and inform him of payments that i have to make.

I have contacted them numerous times and wrote complaints to them, i am still not making any progress and it very stessful and upsetting.

Please can anyone give me some advice as i dont know what else to do to get through to these people and to stop them taking the original full amount of maintenance money from my wages, i dont see how i can get this money back from them?

Comments

  • alison shankster says:

    you are not alone. I dont have the amount of arrears from my ex that you do but my situation is almost exactly the same, except all 4 of my children left, my ex then got straight on to the csa where i was forced to pay him maint, i dont earn a great deal and he earns at least 3 times my wage, i am now in quite a bit of debt as not enough money to live but that doesnt seem to matter, since then one child moved back 9months ago, hrs dropped, still same amount taken, been paying for nearly 2yrs now. My daughter now wants 2 move back and my ex is now saying that as we hav 2 children each that everything should cancel each other out and that if i dont agree to it he’ll stop her from coming, i’v been waiting 8 months for a payment from their father and still nothing. I’v always put my childen first but feel as though I’m always being penalised for trying to be a good parent. Would be my luck to agree to his demands as i’v always sed its not about the money and then csa cancel everything without even receiving a penny from him!!!

  • karen bedford says:

    It does seem unfair but the system is and only based on ‘get the easy ones’ so they can take it off your wages they cant be bothered with the self employed or company owners, I would suggest you pursue your claim i.e. departure appeal – lifestyle inconsistency, go to your MP and make them do something as they get enough money to do nothing! It so annoys me that this is allowed to happen as even thought I got money from my ex, was like getting blood out of a stone and he never paid what he should because he was self employed! Good luck

  • Debbie Weetman says:

    I am a single mother of 4 children. Since 1998 I have brought them up alone without any maintenance. My ex however, went to work in security in Iraq for an american company and has been earning a high wage without tax since 2003. From 1998 till 2003 CSA ordered him to pay me arrears, of which I have been chasing for years and only now after being taken to Court recently, he is paying £150 per month of the £5,000 he was ordered to pay me.

    3 years ago my middle 2 children went to live with him and his wife after he promised to stop working abroad. He has not stopped working abroad and so one of the 2 (my daughter Jasmine) moved back home with me end of August this year, just leaving my son Callum living at his dads. He wants to move back but can’t due to being in the middle of his GCSE’s and has his name down for Army College in Winchester next September.

    I recently had a demand for maintenance by the CSA for Jasmine and Callum to be paid to my ex husband. My ex husband has been assessed at paying me nothing because according to CSA, he earns less than £5 a week!!! When I disputed this, informing CSA that my ex husbands lifestyle proves otherwise (IVF of £32K for his now 5 yr old, private school fees for her, extensions on their house and 4 foreign holidays a year) I was told that they would put the case on hold until the dispute etc is established.

    Since my daughter Jasmine moved back home end of August this year, and I also have a daughter Sophie and son Lewis living with me, I’ve not received any child benefit for Jasmine as there is an investigation going on because my ex and his wife are still claiming for her! I have now received a letter from CSA stating that they are going to be taking £332 a month from my wages which includes arrears since June this year!

    I can’t afford this and already struggling with rent arrears and Council Tax Arrears each month and a single parent (no partner or boyfriend) with 3 teenagers and no maintenance for them. Only yesterday, I contacted their father (my ex) pleading for financial help of £200 to help pay for my gas and electric meter and food and petrol till I get paid next. This he has done as long as I pay him back!

    He has an offshore account in Jersey and is paid a 4 figure number every 2 weeks! Please can you help me. I’m desperate. I just also would like to point out that I have my son Callum all holidays and have train costs when he does come and stays. I would have him weekends but he is 15 (16 at xmas) and has things on most times as teenagers do.
    I also struggle with public transport and petrol for both my daughters at College as we live 8 miles from the nearest town and its 30 miles round trip everyday for me to get to work and back. I have 2 part time jobs.

    I am not saying that I don’t want to support my son living with my ex husband, but if I pay this huge amount each month deducted at source from my wages and not receiving maintenance for the 3 I have at home on my own, I am frightened that I will lose my home due to already being in rent arrears and has an eviction threat earlier this year. I will find it impossible to support the 3 I have!!

    I am in such despair and so upset, not sleeping and crying all the time and their father will not listen or CSA for that matter and I do not know where to turn. I certainly can’t afford a Solicitor.

    I realise you are very busy but I am pleading with you as a Mother yourself and hope you can steer the right help my way. Plus it needs to be addressed that there must be so many absent Fathers who are now working for these American companies in Iraq and Afghanistan, earning ridiculous amounts of tax free money and not supporting their children here because our government has no jurisdiction over their offshore accounts, despite them having homes and families in our Country and living luxury lifestyles.

  • Kate says:

    That’s really unfair. According to the CSA, if there’s been a ‘change of circumstances’ ie you going on maternity leave, they should be reassessing how much you should pay your ex, this takes them up to 12 weeks, during which time, they can’t enforce you to make any payments, but recommend that you pay ‘something.’ I know this because my ex has changed his job, therefore he stopped paying me whilst they work out what his new payments will be.

    The whole CSA system is diabolical, put in a formal complaint and email your local MP. I really think a lot of their employees are biased in favour of men.

  • Miles O'Brien says:

    Who went to the CSA first? You let the wolf in….

  • Samantha Fazakerley says:

    Thanks for all your comments and its reassuring that i am not alone.It appears that many of you are in a worse postion than me for which i truly hope you can get help for.
    I will pusue the matter and will be contacting the local MP and hopefully will get this resolved eventually.
    I am unsure how i will stop the wrong amount of money being taken from my wages each month, other than keep contacting the CSA until they do something and take my maternity pay in to consideration.
    In response to the comment made by the gentlemen about “who contacted the CSA first?”, Maybe i should’nt have gone through the CSA in the first place and now i wished that i hadn’t gone down that route at all, but when i was not receiving any money from her father when we seperated on bad terms, made homeless and then living in a 1 bedroom privately rented studio flat as a student nurse on a bursary, circumstances and pure anger led me to desperate measures to enable a better way of living for my daughter.
    Her father said that he wouldn’t pay me any money for Emily as it would just go on having my hair and nails done, which is absolutely obsurd and would not have happened. He also threatened to take Emily from me if i went to the council to be housed when i was temporarily homeless or if i had to stay in temporary accomodation ie a bedsit, so when a private rented 1 bedroom flat become available i jumped at the chance to enable my daughter and me to stay together, so i wasn’t claiming any housing benefit and lived on a bursary of £500.00 a month as well as child tax credits and child benefits, and made up the rest of the money working part time on top of studying full time, and consequently declared myself bankrupt through incurring debts for the previous amount of time that had lived alone with my daughter.
    If im to be penalised for working hard and trying to provide for my daughter without anything from her father then i must have been such a bad person to have asked for help from the people that are supposed to be there to help you.

    I even wrote to the CSA asking them to not pursue the arrears in maintenance payments as my ex had become so aggressive and unbearable to deal with, and i couldn’t deal with the stress and aggrivation of keep pursuing it any longer. Again the CSA ignore any correspondance and i am now in the position of them still trying to get the arrears from him while i am paying maintenance to him.

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