Our daughter has no bedroom of her own because we pay money to my husband’s ex
I believe that there are massive flaws in the current CSA system.The paying parent is referred to as the ‘absent’ parent or ‘parent without care’ and always treated as the person who is trying to get away with not paying. Well I believe that sometimes they are treated very unfairly and that their other children and families suffer as a result.
My husband has paid maintenance for the last 17 years through the csa for a child born during an affair he had with a woman who was married with 3 other children, 2 of whom were from a previous marriage. Initially she brought the child up as her husband’s until I discovered the affair and personally paid for a dna test to be done. Her husband remained with her and his name remained on the birth certificate. It was agreed that there would be no contact between my husband and the child but he would pay maintenance. I forgave him too. The receiving parent then claimed for more maintenance as I was working too and got it!
The receiving parent now lives with someone else, by whom she has another child. He owns his own successful building company and she has a thriving business advertised on the internet. She is listed as a uk distributor too of this product.
My husband’s story is very different.I am now unemplyed after a long-term illness. we have a 10 yar old daughter. we are extremely hard up. we have a massive mortgage, second mortgage and arrears to the water rates, council tax and bailiffs knocking on our door every month. My car has been repossessed.We have no heating as we cannot afford to repair our oil tank and my daughter has to sleep on a setee in the lounge because her bedroom is cold and damp as we had a flood from burst water pipes in february and water came through the roof in her bedroom. As we could not afford to insure our property, obviously the repairs have not been carried out.
The point of all this is that the CSA have just assessed my husband as having to pay £91.00 a week, the total amount required by their calculations to maintain his child by this other woman who, according to her facebook page has a brand new kitchen fitted. They state in the paperwork that the other parent is receiving an income or benefit that they cannot use in this assessment.
Why not? I know that some men may fiddle the system but my own daughter is living in misery because the CSA will not consider the other parents lifestyle or income. We had outgoings that matched our joint income and paid the csa regularly with no complaint for over 16 years. we could lose our home or i may decide to leave my husband and take my daughter to live in a more comfortable lifestyle somewhere else.
Either with family or apply for a council flat.Then he will have to pay maintenance to the csa for my daughter too.
It is totally unfair that there are honest men out there trying to support their families and maintain paying their responsibilities but no-one considers that there are some women out there who play the system too, having loads of children by different men and living off the enormous csa maintenance that the men’s partners have to pay too! and yet able to earn as much money as they can without being expected to contribute to the maintenance costs. Surely there is an upper limit to what the csa think it costs to maitain a child comfortably? In our case the woman was receiving maintenance from 3 different men, their partners and lived with a 4th man and ran her own successful business!Potentially receiving £400 a week in maintenance alone.
The law is an ass! My child lives in a freezing damp house with no bedroom of her own to use, no money to spend on her at all. I can’t be right. Can anyone give me some advice.
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RT @CSAHell: Our daughter has no bedroom of her own because we pay money to my husband’s ex: I believe that there are… http://t.co/6Q1 …
Carol-anne:-
If your husband is on the old system(pre 2003) then he will receive allowances for yourself, any children in your household and housing cost in the assessment.
This should be shown clearly on the letter received stating the PWC was in receipt of a benefit.
On the new system (post 2003) the net income used is reduced if there is a relevant child in the non-resident parents household. Again this should be shown clearly on the post assessment letter received.
Absent Parent is an obsolete term no longer normally used. Non-resident parent is more generally used. Payer and receiver will be terms used on the future scheme.
carol-anne,
Does the £91pw include payment for any arrears?
Have the CSA been given ALL the info they need to make a proper calculation?
When working out net income, the CSA exclude the income of any partner living with the parent. But they do use a partner’s income when working out other parts of the amount of child maintenance that must be paid, such as protected income.
They only take account of the income of a NRPP when working out protected income.
A NRPP not legally obligated to disclose their finances.
However, in some cases, it can be beneficial to the NRP for their partner to disclose such, especially if they are on a low wage or are a non-earner as the CSA will automatically assume that the NRPP can contribute to 50% of the bills/housing costs, thereby upping the NRP’s maintenance payments (as they are assumed to have more disposable income). If the NRPP is not earning, or earns a low wage, then they can’t contribute to the housing costs.
With regard to your ‘massive mortgage, second mortgage and arrears to the water rates, council tax’ etc, the Citizens Advice Bureau may be able to assist/advise with dealing with your creditors.
chall ~ afairercsaforall
Ok
So it’s now 8 years on from my initial post and now we are at last free of the CSA.
I was too flabbergasted to answer the responses to my initial post as obviously these people were working for the CSA and were spouting all their usual jargon about protected income and the formulae that they use etc. but I can now answer the following:
Of course the CSA had all the information- we were truly honest at all times – for 16 years we paid the amount of maintenance they calculated – sometimes as much as £800 a month!!! And because of our honesty I did declare my income even though I didn’t need to.
Yes of course it was under the old regime, despite how unfair the system was that meant some people were paying less than others under the new scheme.
And obviously the CSA did all the calculations to take into account our housing costs, our own child at home and the fact that I went from working full time to sickness benefit.
That was the whole point I was making. We were unable to live as a family because of those very calculations.
The Citizens advice bureau were no help at all. The only help we had was from most of our creditors who we telephoned to explain our situation and they gave us a 6 month ‘get out of jail’ period.
We had to sell our home and my husband had to work abroad as it was the only job he could get so he took it until something else would come along.
The saddest day of my life was overhearing my daughter talking to herself at 10 years of age in the bathroom saying, ‘I hate my life.’
We managed to keep going and although very shaky fir a while, our marriage survived.
8 years later, we have come out the other side.
We are both self employed now and our companies are doing very well. But we have clawed our way back to this point. Our daughter is taking her A levels this year and is very close to us.
We ended up paying maintenance through the CSA until the other child was 21 years of age!!!
She was engaged and living with her fiancé from the age of 19 but because she was attending a technique college and the mother was still claiming child allowance for her, we were told that we still had to continue paying maintenance. The girl even worked at a beauty salon part time too!!
Over 21 years, my husband and I have paid on average £700 a month in maintenance for 1 child – that equates to approximately £177,000.
Truly we understood and accepted that we had to pay for the child’s care. That was never something we wanted to ‘get out of’ but during the lowest point in our lives, the CSA continued to cripple us and damaged our family unit, with no consideration to my illness or our daughter’s wellbeing. It was all about their formula and their jargon.
I just wanted the system to be fair.
Well I hope that anyone who is going through the CSA assessment right now and struggling as we were, reads this and gains strength to know that you will come out the other side.