What am I paying the CSA for?

January 17, 2012

I am a father of two currently paying £220 a month CSA. My children are 15 & 12 and I agree that a father should be responsible for paying to look after his children. The difference in my case is the following:- My ex-wife was having an affair with the person who she is now living with, she stole £1000 from me before I found out about the affair. I now live alone and my children stay over on a Tuesday, Thursday & Friday night.

They also stay all through the day on a Saturday and come to my house most Sundays and stay throughout the day, therefore they are at my house the same amount of time, if not more often, than they are at their mothers. I also pay for all of their clothes, mobile phone contracts, pocket money, and school lunch money twice a week. Their mother never buys new clothes and rarely washes their clothes, that is also left for me to do. How the hell does the CSA work out that I should pay her £220 a month considering all that I do and all that she doesn’t do?

Kind regards

Aaron Cambridge

Comments

  • joanne says:

    Get proof that your children stay with you more so than at their mother’s as you get a reduction in cm payments….don’t be surprised that access will reduce if it means less money to the ex. Also keep receipts etc of everything you buy the kids, keep copies and send it in with a letter to the CSS, send recorded with a response time. The way the csa see things is what you do for the children are gifts, if you pay csa anything on top is merely just that, so technically you don’t have to provide anything else…..which I’m sure just goes against the grain of being a loving caring parent. I’m not up on this, but it might be worth trying to get child benefit in your name if you do have them more than 50% of the time.

  • chall says:

    Aaron,

    To clarify, the CSA calculate a shared care reduction on the number the nights the qualifying child/ren spend with the non resident parent, not days.
    As they stay with you 3 nights pw, the reduction to liability should reflect such.

    chall ~ afairercsaforall

  • KMcQ80 says:

    Joanne advises:-
    ‘Get proof that your children stay with you more so than at their mother’s as you get a reduction in cm payments…’
    How?
    What proof?
    Get the mother to sign that the children are not with her for three nights per week thereby signing away 50% of her money from the father?
    Classic example of how in the eyes of the CSA and it’s dwindling band of supporters that mothers can do no wrong and fathers can do no right.

    Best of luck, Aaron – you are not alone.

  • MDH says:

    In my case, my son stays with me months at a time and I still pay over 1000/month. Beisdes keeping track of when he is with me and when he is not, how can I prove this only my word against my ex. Please help!!

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