Desperate for help...

frustrated1983

I need help desperately..my partner was with his wife for 10 years and worked right the way through, he left her about 5 months ago and as communication was not great he opted to go through the CSA imagining it would be a direct clean way to pay, he actually contacted them. He heard nothing until now and all of a sudden he has recieved a Deduction of Earnings order for almost £600 a month, bearing in mind he only receives £1300 a month wage (something the CSA never actually asked for information on). When he queried this he was told he had an £11,000 bill. As he has never claimed benefits and lived at the family home we are a bit baffled, His wife had 24 hour access to his wages as they had a joint bank account. This sounds a bit odd as we thought the weekly payment was around £55 a week. Either the CSA calculation's are way off but they are not willing to budge, all they say is that they have paid for his children for years and now he has to pay the money back. Does anyone have any advice before we start accusing his ex of benefit fraud??

marksoton

I would not worry about accusing her of benefit fraud !

If he only left her 5 months ago there is no way 11k will be owed !

LizzieS_2

Are you sure the csa are not linking him to other children?

frustrated1983

nope..the bill is for just 2 children. I've advised him to call them and ask for dates this relates to but where do we go from there? He's pretty clueless about all this too. I've read a lot on here and it seems like no matter how proposterous the CSA claims they take money regardless. Plus he didn't even get contacted after he informed them he wanted to pay..we thought he may recieve something asking for his financial information but no, no letter asking for bank details..just straight DEO! How the hell can they say they paid for his children when he paid for his children by living with them since birth and he worked. His ex had 24hr access to his wages, they had a joint bank account!

Caz3121

this definately looks like an error.

On his salary the CM would be £260 per month so it looks as if they have calculated 3.5 years arrears.

He would be able to prove through council tax etc that he was living in the same home as the children so could not be an absent parent.

The CSA will only claim from when they were first "engaged" so either his wife went to them years ago and for some reason they did not find him or this is a real error (does he have a common name)

You should ask for a full breakdown of the alleged arrears - unless he has been paying he will have arrears from the date he left.

frustrated1983

he did have a private agreement with her and for the first 6 weeks or so he did pay her £80 a week but things got strained and she started demanding more than we had and demanding he pay the rent despite her being on HB therefore we thought the CSA would be a more straightforward and protected way to pay, little did we know! So he has run up a couple of months bill as the CSA advised to stop all private payments. A couple of months worth is not a problem as thats what due but there's no way £11k is due. The only other thing we can think of is that she had some sort of claim going when he was there, we wouldn't put it past his ex and it does seem like a huge huge error!! But what would she need to have been in receipt of to be eligible for CS? He was totally unaware of any benefits. But he did know she did have a post office account and as far as I'm aware that can only be for benefit payments. If it was tax credits and him being there surely it would have been working tax credit and therefore payable to the worker? And even if it was tax credits would that make him liable for CS? Sorry if it's confusing, we don't really understand benefits.

Voyager2002

Ask for their calculations: surely they have made a mistake or are relying on incorrect information. If you don't get anywhere, ask your local MP for help.

And in the meantime, don't worry.

Fran

frustrated1983 wrote: »

But he did know she did have a post office account and as far as I'm aware that can only be for benefit payments.

Anyone can open a post office account, it's not exclusively for benefits.

If it was tax credits and him being there surely it would have been working tax credit and therefore payable to the worker? And even if it was tax credits would that make him liable for CS?

Tax Credits send the information to both people in a joint claim so I would think it's highly unlikely he would be unaware of any claim for three years.

It sounds odd that CSA never asked for his wage details etc. so does sound like a mistake.

p00hsticks

Fran wrote: »

Anyone can open a post office account, it's not exclusively for benefits.

You might be able to open one (I doubt it, but I'm not sure) but it would be pretty pointless as you can only get benefits and tax credits paid into it.

http://www.postoffice.co.uk/portal/po/content1?catId=19100189&mediaId=19200177

Fran

p00hsticks wrote: »

You might be able to open one (I doubt it, but I'm not sure) but it would be pretty pointless as you can only get benefits and tax credits paid into it.

http://www.postoffice.co.uk/portal/po/content1?catId=19100189&mediaId=19200177

Ah right! I didn't realise it was exclusively for benefits.

frustrated1983

well update to this guys..apparantely the CSA aren't in the wrong, after a strongly worded letter was sent to thim, my partner called them and got a bit more help than last time. He was told his ex had been in receipt of income support for 3 years back in 2002, they gave him dates, amounts everything. So he's disputing this and has told them he can prove via wage slips, bank statements, council tax bills, mortgage payments etc that he was resident. He doesn't want to completely ruin her but we feel it to be extremely unfair that he will be responsible for £11,000 that he knew nothing about (he worked away at the time) whilst he was legitamately busting a gut to provide for his kids whilst his ex refused to even get a part time job. Not to mention all the other bills she has forwarded to him even though they are in joint names and he is willing to go halfs(he has been told it would take too long to recover the money from her from her benefits) All in all it totals £1000 before he can even think about rent, food, current bills. Now she wants maintenance for herself so she doesn't have to get a job!