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CSA payments for alleged daughter - what can we do?
Comments
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We have our lease, our council tax bill and his employee clock-in card (which he used to hate having to do, but is now very grateful) showing he was working in Scotland at the time as well as bank & credit card statements. We also have the letter from Royal Mail telling him that his mail redirection would finish on X date as he hadn't renewed it. We have also contacted the letting agency that he used to rent his flat from and they have said they will send us a letter (or will send it direct to CSA if that is better) confirming the date he moved out and the date his new tenant moved in (the following week). Do you think this will be enough?
We haven't been able to get in touch with our MP at the weekend, but have managed to contact our local councilor. He is the same party as the MP and has promised to call her tomorrow morning and ask her to contact us urgently.
I don't understand how they could tell us on the phone that there was nothing we could do when it appears there is. Thank you for your help.
I would strongly urge you to contact NACSA still.
It sounds like you have a strong case. Do not rely on front line CSA staff to provide accurate information as to what you can and cannot do.
Good luck.0 -
DirectDebacle wrote: »I have to admit I am aghast at this. I would have thought the system should be geared with the benefit and welfare of the child at the heart of the matter. Does this mean that a woman with a child can just pick the name of someone out of a phonebook, name him as the father of their child and then just sit and wait for the money to roll in? Are their no paternity laws to protect people from such things?
Forgive my ignorance but all this is coming across as some faceless tinpot Govt. organisation doing as it pleases as if we were living in a dictatorship and not a democracy.
I am all for absent parents supporting their children but surely there is something in place to protect people from malicious or false/mistaken accusations. Isn't there? Please tell me there is.
To be fair " normally " there is an option to dispute paternity, so no a woman cannot just sit back and wait for the money. The problem here is that the information has been sent to the wrong address so the CSA have made assumptions.
It is a very unforgiving system though that wrongs many people. The notion that it is in place to help children is by and large a myth.
Your astonishment is quite normal for the public at large,if only they knew what went on in some cases. Legislation passed this year could make things a lot worse.0 -
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Let me just clarify first though - did he ever receive the initial forms from the CSA asking him whether he agreed that he was the father?0
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kelloggs36 wrote: »Let me just clarify first though - did he ever receive the initial forms from the CSA asking him whether he agreed that he was the father?
No. The first letter we have is one stating he owed thousands in arrears that must be paid immediately. I can't remember the exact wording, but it had the little girl's name on it. When he phoned on receiving it that's when the whole saga of him supposedly ignoring letters was brought up.
It took us a month of phoning every day before someone on the phone told him when the letters had been sent for us to realise and explain about the move.
He's never had anything from them hat hasn't stated that she is his child.0 -
Good, that's what I was hoping you would say! Good luck0
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I'd just like to thank everyone for their help.
Our councillor managed to get us in to see our MP yesterday as she was in her office here for the day (my head is spinning with info as we seen CAB, lawyer, councillor and MP in the one day).
Our MP's secretary/assistant took photocopies of all the documents we felt were proof that my husband had never got the letters and rang someone at the CSA and pretty much demanded they were looked at asap.
She herself has had dealings with the CSA (her husband paid CSA for his children then they moved in with him and her, but the CSA wouldn't stop taking payments for months!) so she has a very no nonsense attitude with them. She also doesn't speak to the people we had to speak to she "goes over heads".
She has demanded a bundle of information from them relating to the claim (lots of technical form names and stuff that I didn't really understand) and her assistant told us on our way out that when she asks for things she won't give in until she gets them so that was very reassuring.
Fingers crossed it is some way to being resolved. Thanks again for all your help everyone.0 -
Marli keep us posted as this would certainly be an interesting case to follow.Hit the snitch button!member #1 of the official warning clique.
:j:D
Feel the love baby!0 -
I'd just like to thank everyone for their help.
Our councillor managed to get us in to see our MP yesterday as she was in her office here for the day (my head is spinning with info as we seen CAB, lawyer, councillor and MP in the one day).
Our MP's secretary/assistant took photocopies of all the documents we felt were proof that my husband had never got the letters and rang someone at the CSA and pretty much demanded they were looked at asap.
She herself has had dealings with the CSA (her husband paid CSA for his children then they moved in with him and her, but the CSA wouldn't stop taking payments for months!) so she has a very no nonsense attitude with them. She also doesn't speak to the people we had to speak to she "goes over heads".
She has demanded a bundle of information from them relating to the claim (lots of technical form names and stuff that I didn't really understand) and her assistant told us on our way out that when she asks for things she won't give in until she gets them so that was very reassuring.
Fingers crossed it is some way to being resolved. Thanks again for all your help everyone.
Good ! At lest you are making progress !!!0 -
Well we're finally sorted!!!
This whole saga has gone on for months, ruined our Christmas and New Year and brought my husbands depression back, but we have finally received a full letter of apology from the CSA! There has been an investigation and a number of staff dealing with our case have been spoken too and one particularly rude person has been disciplined. The man we had the biggest complaint about no longer works for them so no discaplinery action could be taken against him.
Basically in December my husband had a heart attack, I believe brought on from the stress of the whole situation. The CSA "kindly" gave him another month to pay-up before taking legal action; which was lovely of them....not.
They wouldn't do anything to help us on the basis of him ignoring their letters. Despite us sending them a large bundle of proof that he was living in Scotland - not London. Our MP seemed very efficient in the beginning, but she quickly seemed to get fed up of the back and forthing.
I finally got utterly fed up of their actions and rang up the mother of the little girl after finding her number in the phone book. Obviously she was a bit reluctant to speak to me at first, but when I explained the situation she described her daughter's father to me - 5'8ish, slim, blonde, blue eyes, an accountant who drove a red sports car. I explained to her that my husband is 6' 4", heavy, brown eyes, !!!! with numbers and cannot drive (and hasn't been able too for many years) due to medical conditions.
I offered to send her a photocopy of my husbands driving license or passport to show her I wasn't just saying that. She asked me to email her a photograph of my husband and she would email me a photograph she had of her daughters father.
She phoned the CSA and gave them merry hell. Her daughter's father has a very common name and did indeed live in the same street as my husband, however he doesn't have the same first name as my husband and has a veyr unusual middle name. There is no way we should have been hounded in the way we have.
She had not been offered the option of having a DNA test in November, despite us being told in writing that she had refused this. She demanded the DNA test which seemed the quickest way to resolve things and set them chasing her daughter's actual father.
We got a letter telling us that my husband wasn't the father so the case against him was closed. They seemed to think that that was that despite making him ill, threatening us and being disgustingly rude to me when my husband was ill - the member of staff I spoke to about his heart attack said it was very convenient that he'd taken ill when he had - this was when he was still in HDU!! We made a formal complaint through our lawyer, as did the little girls mother.
Finally today we had a full letter of apology for their "shambolic" handling of the case and for the undue stress they placed on my husband and I.
Ironically we have since met the mother and her little girl and she and I have become friends. She is also pursuing a formal complaint against them for the wasted time they spent chasing the wrong person despite her giving them his full name (including v. unusual middle name), occupation and the name of the place he'd worked for more than 10 years!
Thank you for all the support. Apologies for not updating sooner, I've just been spening all of my time nursing my husband back to health.
Marli0
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