Tried to pay direct, ex refused – what can I do?
Hi, i am writing this in order to discuss the Child Support Agency.
Background
I have been fighting to see my son for 7 years now, after his mother refused contact. I have been through 3 local court cases and 2 county court cases, due to her constant breaches of the court order, and have paid thousands of pounds for the pleasure.
Approximately 2 years ago i was at a county court and for the first time they started to action the orders that were set against my ex partner.
Due to this she has constantly poisoned my son against me, she did this more and more as she knew she would eventually be beaten at court.
I have refered this to Social Services however they are reluctant to investigate due to hard to prove and apperently emotional harm just isn’t that important.
My son has now started saying he does not want to see me anymore. I have always said i would fight his mother but i wouldn’t fight my son.
This has resulted in me withdrawing contact.
This brings me onto the situation with the CSA.
I have never refused to pay for my son and have always stressed i am willing to pay. I have had experience of the CSA for nearly 8 years now, and i know there system very well. Several years ago i had a bad experience of the company and didn’t know enough about them to argue my point.
Several years ago i was contacted by the CSA asking for money as soon as my relationship broke down. I have insisted from day 1 i want to pay and questioned the need for CSA. I would be quite willing to pay my son the money, however because it was my choice and i suggested this, his mother has refused. She cant take me having a little control.
I even went to the length of my solicitor sending my ex partner an official letter stating i would pay directly, she refused.
The CSA messed up my accounts and stated i had to pay arrears of £600 in full. I questioned this and asked to pay monthly they refused. I have since learnt they can allow monthly payments.
I have now been paying regular CSA payment for several years leading me up to todays events.
Due to events around my sons welfare, contact has completely stopped and therefore a day later i received a call from the CSA. I was fully intending on contacting CSA after a couple of days as i was hurting from making the decision to cancel contact and just wanted a couple of days to get my head round it.
During this phone conversation with CSA i stated i fully expected to pay more for my son but i asked them on that occassion to carry out the change straight away in order to stop me going into arrears, this was confirmed and i also asked for them to contact my ex partner to try and pursuade her to receive money from me rather using the CSA.
3 Weeks has since passed and i have received no word, so i contacted the CSA today to ask for an update.
They stated nothing had been done and it was being processed. This brings me back to what i experienced a few years ago, i insisted that i told them during the last conversation i wanted to pay straight away and change my direct debit. They obviously took no notice of this and stated i may be in arrears, they said because of the back log and lack of staff i would have to pay arrears. I told them camly that this was not my fault and they should rectify their own problems. I insisted i would not pay arrears as it was their fault and i told them 3 weeks ago to change the payment.
I also asked what they had done about contacting my ex partner with regards to my suggestion. I was informed nothing had been done.
The current processes relating to CSA are wrong for people in my situation.
I fully undersand why the CSA get involved in cases in order to help single mothers with tracking down fathers and making them pay for their children. However i feel the system is not relevant to my situation and probably many others and feel it needs to be looked at.
I dont feel i need to be hounded and treat this way, i am more than willing to pay, however the stumbling block is my ex partner. I feel the CSA need to look at their policies when faced with circumstances like this. If they had been different i wouldnt have to be hounded and i wouldnt have to pay arrears .
I understand that the CSA are changing and ‘fines’ may be imposed if persons do not engage with each other to sort finances out and also that a % may go to the CSA to fund this process, ersulting in children losing more money and the money going to the CSA but i am told this may not be the case.
The system is not set up for circumstances like mine and probably many others,
consider some changes, i.e if one wants to pay, what is the justifiable reason for others not wanting to, and if not justified then action be taken.
I will not pay arrears and am willing to attend court to fight this matter as i feel the CSA have been constantly incompetent in relation to my case.
ANYBODY GOT ANY VIEWS
3 thoughts on “Tried to pay direct, ex refused – what can I do?”
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Quote Gary; ‘I will not pay arrears and am willing to attend court to fight this matter …’
The change of circumstances will be back dated to the period when the CSA were made aware of such.
If you refuse to pay, you will run the risk of being deemed non compliant and of the CSA placing a DEO on your wages. The agency can take a max of 40% of the NRP’s income, including arrears.
It isn’t unusual for the CSA to initially request the full payment of any arrears, regardless of how they accumulated. But they can make arrangements for arrears payments to be collected over a period of time.
You could enter your details on the calculator http://www.cmoptions.org/en/calculator/calculator.asp to get a rough idea what your recalculated liability may be and put the difference to one side ready for when the agency expect payment.
chall ~ afairercsaforall
as chall has advised you will legally be responsible for any arrears accrued whilst the csa process your change of circumstances and if you refuse to do so they will impose a DEO against your wages.
Although you asked for the re-calculation to be done immediately the csa have thousands of calls each day reporting changes of circs and these must be worked in date order, so it may take some time for your assessment to be recalculated.
Sadly if your ex partner refuses to agree to direct payments then you cannot insist on it – equally if your ex wanted direct pay and you were not happy with the suggestion then she could not insist on it – maintenance direct must be agreed by both parties.
Can you not just save up the money that you think you’ll need to pay in the end and then when they get their arses in gear you’ll have the money to hand.
I can see where you coming from and wanting to do the “right thing” etc etc but given one of your aims is to see your son have you thought about being a little less helpful. I will be upfront and say that personally I think the law should be that unless there has been a proven case of domestic violence the default position should be no contact, no pay. If you started to engineer a personal financial situation where payment was optional it may make your ex come round to thinking that contact was actually a good idea.