CSA suddenly tell me my next payment will drop by £350 this month. Advice please!!

parkysaves

After initially taking 9 mths to get a penny out of my ex husband for our two children in 2005, things seemed to be ticking along ok.
I have an order set up which means the money comes straight out of his wages due to him not paying and sending small amounts at the start. CSA advised me not to remove this despite him requesting on many occasions.
Other than him moaning that he pays too much etc etc, things have been going ok.

SO..... imagine my surprise to get a letter through the post last week telling me that due to a change of circumstances my ex will now be paying me a sum of £90 a mth which is a reduction of approx £350!!! My next payment is due on 23/4.
No warning, nothing.

As I was not aware of any change in circumstances (I am still on fairly good terms with ex and his wife) I phoned the CSA to enquire.
It appears that there was an error in the system and they did not update the claim to show ex had 2 children living at his address. So they have backdated the overpayment to 2005 and cut my payments down.

This is A LOT of money for me. And I had no idea that this was in the pipeline and have had no chance to save or prepare myself for this sudden drop. Whilst my husband and I both work, I am part time so as I can do the school runs and not pay out too much for nurseries etc. This now has me really worried.

What i wonder is do I have a leg to stand on. It is THEIR mistake and why should my children be placed in financial hardship because of their inadequacies.
The man on the phone told me he can see it should have been done in 2005 but for some reason dropped off the system. Great!

I appreciate my ex has overpaid (and to all the men out there I have not and do not take everything from my ex. He has a house with his wife, 2 cars, holidays to America, gym etc etc Lol!!!) and he needs the money paid back but this was the CSA !!!! up and I feel very angry that whilst things at the start were very upsetting, we have both done everything we should do (although in fairness my ex has had 4 yrs nearly to realise that his monthly amounts hadn't changed once he reported the birth of his son!!!) can to do this properly and my family are now going to struggle.

I am worried sick how we will get through next month. Its money that we lived on (put some away in trust fund every mth) and had no inkling that it was wrong or likely to be stopped.

After all I went through emotionally I now feel cheated all over again and just when things had started to even out.

Advice anyone who has had similar happen.
Thank you

kelloggs36

The trouble is that you have already had more money than you were 'entitled' to and so they must recover it from future payments to even it out.

parkysaves

Hi Kelloggs. Yes, not sure I made this clear in my post. I appreciate that I have had the money and am not expecting that the money is just forgotten about but the only reason the overpayment was made was purely an error on their part which they have admitted to, yet it is now just taking the money back without any warning. If they had written to me now and said your payment from May will be ...... then that wouldnt have been so bad as at least we would have been forewarned.

And I had no way of knowing about the 'entitlement' as I don't know how much my ex earns, nor do I wish to, so just had the schedule and lived to this with no idea that this may be wrong and I would suddenly be considerably worse off.

Funny thing is, it took them 9 mths to sort out the claim and then 12 hours to claw back the money from their error!!!!!!

My ex has overpayed by about £80 and yet I am to be £350 worse off a month.

parkysaves

sorry, that should be overpayed by £80 a mth and not in total Lol!!!

Prudent

It does seem a drastic drop. I remember when my ex owed big arrears they insisted they could take no more than an extra £80 a month off him, despite a huge salary. Surely this works both ways?

kelloggs36

Your assessment will tell you how much he earns - perhaps they are trying to recover over a short period - short and sharp and then increase the payments again as quickly as possible? How much has he overpaid overall?

To be fair, they have given you notice, just not very much!

catenorfolk

I am sorry this is happening, altho if he had been underpaying you, I am sure that you would like the owed monies as soon as possible. May be you can use the monies from the 'trust fund' to get you over an awkward time!!!!

LizzieS_2

parkysaves wrote: »

This is A LOT of money for me. And I had no idea that this was in the pipeline and have had no chance to save or prepare myself for this sudden drop.

You should always be prepared as your ex could end up in a situation where he has to pay nil!

Having said that, it does seem unfair you have less than 2 years to repay the overpayment, whereas the other way round he would have had 2 years.

kelloggs36

Have you asked why the overpayment cannot be recovered over a longer period of time?

parkysaves

In an ideal world I would be prepared and putting the money aside in case he loses his job (although his job is poss the most secure if ever there was one - govt) and not 'rely' on the money but the money is needed and is not a luxury payment that I get to enable me and the kids to have an extra holiday etc etc.
My budget is very carefully planned. I don't get a lot of the benefits as I just earn above the thresh-hold and the maintenance money is necessary for me to pay the mortgage and bills. I am sure there are very few moneysavers that have money going spare at the moment!!

Re the trust fund, this is the Child Trust fund and I believe it is non removable. I will look into this, though both children look to be university goers in the future and this I have been saving to help with that so I dont have to ask their father for help in the future.

As for wanting any underpayment quickly..... it took 9 mths to get a penny with some £1000+ arrears and I missed mortgage payments as I had no paperwork and was told this was done, had utility debts etc etc and am trying my best to repair a bad credit rating and reduce my large mortgage rate due to bad credit caused when he left without warning 5 yrs ago.

Anyway, I'm ranting as feeling a little like I am being judged as a money grabber or something, I just wondered whether anyone had been in the same position and had any advice. CSA say they are recovering the amount quickly as it is their error and they want to avoid any unneccessary complaints!!!! Well, they just may get one from me!!!

Soubrette

parkysaves wrote: »

Anyway, I'm ranting as feeling a little like I am being judged as a money grabber or something,

I don't blame you for ranting - that would be like losing most of my salary if I lost that amount of income :eek:

I don't think anyone is judging you as a money grabber though - I let my ex husband have 4 years of paying what he felt was a fair amount towards our children and it turned out that was very little because he'd rather spend the money on himself :rolleyes: I have now involved the CSA and had my initial suspicions of greed confirmed because he promptly lied about his income (I get £130 a month for two).

I still feel as if I'm trying to force him to be the kind of parent that he is incapable of being (I'm taking him all the way to an oral tribunal if it takes that much) and if he wants to be a selfish tight git then he will get the relationship he deserves with his children.

I keep reminding myself though that I'm doing for the children as they deserve a better lifestyle than I am giving them and they deserve help through university etc - now to the actual point of my post I am very irritated by posts here that imply. or even say that some PWCs spend all maintenance money on themselves. This is because I would rather tell him to bog off and let him keep his bloody money but I know I'm disadvantaging (I know that's not a word but I hope you know what I mean) the girls if I do this. So I end up all grumpy when I have to fill out stupid CSA forms and blaming them for his deceit. Plus I suppose it's not nice to think that someone you once loved is such a git.

So all I am saying is that I can't see any evidence of people judging you and there a lot of people with good advice like kelloggs and sympathy - like me I hope

Good luck, phone, write and complain that you can't afford to pay back that amount at that level, go through the complaints procedure and involve your MP.

You could also post on the debtfreewannabe board as they have some fantastic advice on paring out goings to the minimum in the short term to help tide you over, and the income board for help in making some cash.

Sou