Child Maintenance (CSA) questions (merged)

emmaBZ

thanks like i said hes been paying maintenance he was on benefit of around £80 a fortnight and was giving £20 a fortnight for baby ....he started a new job on this weds and will work out how much he has to give for the baby....hes got no problem providing for the baby .....its just the extra she keeps asking for....?

bikerqueen

I have a six month old and twenty quid a fortnight goes nowhere towards feeding and dressing her and putting her in nappies - let alone toys and fun activities for her.

He needs to make it official, and go to court, and stand up to her. He can't keep paying as he is, although it wont be easy for him.

hobo28

Contact and maintenance are really two separate issues and need to be dealt with separately.

What he pays is irrelevant. The child (or in this case baby) should not be prevented from having a relationship with his father simply because the "adults" cannot agree over how much.

Don't discuss "if you pay then you will see....".

The arguments are:

1) If you don't allow me to see my son, i'll have no choice but to start court proceedings.

2) If you want to discuss maintenance we can. Here are the CSA guidelines to help us.

shaunc196

Please Advise if possible. Now this is going to sound aweful. As above, you see that I am staying in the house, paying mortgage and Secured Loan. Wife knows the situation. I have managed to adjust the bills, so that I am left with £13 per week, which I holding onto to treat the children when I have them.

Now obviously, and this is making me physically ill and sick with worry. Wife has applied for IS, and obviously gave consent to CSA.

When CSA come to assess her, how long are we looking approx, and does the CSA look at my money side of things? There is NO money there, I am not hiding anything, just don't have anything and the wife knows this.

Its amicable between us.

I am absolutely terrified as I know, the CSA are going to want round 40per week, which is £160 per month, and then that leaves me with - figure.

We cannot sell the house, and with all the changes that will happen, I wanted to keep the house, so the kids felt some normality when they stayed, and I would that as often as possible.

Any ideas of how to stop this very sick feeling?

Karen1980

The CSA have been in contact with my X hes on benefits. They said I will get £5 a week from him!!! Anyway do you think I will be waiting ages for my extra £5 and do they backdate it? £5 isnt going to make much of a difference but just wondered really?:rolleyes:

thesaint

I would also like to add, if his ex partner does stop contact at anytime, please tell your brother to not be tempted to stop the payments.

This will reinforce the fact that they are seperate.

He is lucky to have a sister like you to advise him.:T

kelloggs36

Whilst he was on benefits, he should only have been paying her a fiver a week (this is what the CSA would have asked him to pay). He needs to make an offer of 15% of his net income (less one seventh per night of the week that the child stays with him) and no more. Also, he needs to get a written receipt stating that the money paid is for maintenance of 'name of child' and both he and she need to sign it. If she refuses, then he should refuse to pay anything unless the CSA contact him. He will not be asked to make any arrears payments unless he has been contacted by the CSA. So, if they write to him today, today is the furthest back they can ask him to pay. In which case, I would put away 15% of my net income into a separate account which can be used to pay the arrears when they ask for it as it may take some time to sort out. That way, he won't be having to pay a bit more on top to make up any difference.

kelloggs36

shaunc196 wrote:

First of all it was a consolidation loan. To pay off all the credit cards "we" had run up. Then we just topped it up. Its in both names, therefore both are responsible for it. We didn't do any major purchasing with it, and we was very silly. When we took it out, we done the payment protection. If you don't claim after x amount of years, this pays you back, hense the 12K payout.

Hope that clears things up, but yes it is a loan, secured on the property, and its in both names, as BOTH of us done it. Hope thats enough for a variation.

Oh dear! As the original debt was for credit cards, then there is no allowance for a variation as it specifically excludes debts run up from credit cards - even if there has been a consolidation. So there will be no reduction there I'm afraid.

Do the children stay over night with you at all? If so, you get one seventh reduction per night they stay - provided that it works out at least 1 night per week.

kelloggs36

Karen1980 wrote:

The CSA have been in contact with my X hes on benefits. They said I will get £5 a week from him!!! Anyway do you think I will be waiting ages for my extra £5 and do they backdate it? £5 isnt going to make much of a difference but just wondered really?:rolleyes:

When did tney send the MEF to him? That's the date that the maintenance should start clocking up from. They should deduct it from source so it SHOULD be straight forward. difficult to say about arrears they may ask for an extra couple of quid per week in order to pay it off but I'm not 100% sure as usually with minimum payments, they wait until they can afford to make additional payments. It may have changed recently. Have you rung them to ask?

tevangelynne

would not hold your breath my ex owes thousands they have never got a penny off him