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We’ve made an agreement but can the CSA get involved later on?
i have 3 children with my ex wife, we are now divorced. i have been unemployed for 2 years and from my job seekers allowance ten pound per fortnight was taken out for csa payment, I have found a job now and when i start work i obviously will be paying a lot more for my children, me and my ex are on good terms and have came to an agreement ourselves over the money, will this be a legal agrrement or can later down the line the CSA get involved and suddenly say i owe more? can we keep this between me and my ex?
7 thoughts on “We’ve made an agreement but can the CSA get involved later on?”
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Under CSA 3, you are encouraged to make your own private agreement, but beware, even if you have your agreement legally drawn up by a solicitor, the CSA have to power to overrule it and do whatever they want
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As Peter Brown has wisely advised you, however you pay be it cash or bank transfer ensure you keep a record ( date time signature amount)
Best to get your ex to request the CSA to close the case before you pay anything.
gwt it in writing if she then go to csa u can fight it she can not brake a agreement between u
Unfortunately an arrangement between both parties isn’t worth the paper its written on so to speak. I just hope for your own sake that you’ve been paying by direct debit and have referenced it as ‘child maintenance’. Regardless if you’ve had a private arrangement for x amount of time, she can still go to the CSA and there is nothing you can do about it. The only thing that can over rule the CSA is a court order that states what child maintenance is to be paid.
If you have your own agreement, you should get your ex wife to either call up and close the case or ask for it to be changed to “maintenance direct” before you make any payments. Case closure would mean that the CSA would have no further involvement which is ideal for both if you are on good terms and can mutually agree an amount.
“Maintenance DIrect” would mean that the case remained open on the CSA system, however no money would be charged on the case and the CSA would have no involvement in the collection of the payments. The CSA could still complete calculations to advise what should be paid but would have no power in enforcing the amount. At any point during the direct period, either you or your ex wife could contact the CSA and request that they start collecting payments again. This would only be taken from the date the request was made and would not be backdated.
My advice is: wait until you have confirmation from the CSA that they are not looking for payments (either closure or maintenance direct). Make your payments through the bank clearly titled as child maintenance. If you pay cash, get a signed receipt which confirms that the payment was made and accepted in respect of child maintenance.