REMO-Reciprocal Enforcement of Maintenance Order

halucin8

Hi, I have 2 NRPs. One (NRP1) a UK national who is non compliant with regards to CS and in arrears to the tune of £16k and repaying at £25@ week and still non complaint with regards to regular maintenance , and the other (NRP2) took lessons from the master of non compliance and lives in Denmark. Having had such a bad experience with the CSA, when NRP2 decided to leave, i applied for Child Support from Denmark (Statsforvaltningen). I completed all the forms and was awarded child support from April 2011 and have the official order, unfortunately i did not start getting payments until mid 2012, the Danish process used to be if the NRP refused to pay the state would pay and automatically take the money from their income. I received a grant total of 4 payments, then they stopped. I queried why and was told the system in Denmark had changed and while automatic recovery would continue for Danish PWC as i was not Danish they could only pay me if NRP2 made the payments voluntarily ( yeah that going to happen !! ).

I have received no arrears payment or regular payments apart from the 4 i mentioned. I contacted REMO who told me to apply to the courts for an Annex 6 i spoke to Stephen in Liverpool Family courts and he asked me to write in enclosing a copy of the Danish child support order which i did a few months ago, i rang him today and he said he had had to pass it on to somewhere to check if it was enforceable and that I should be hearing something in the next few weeks. What i would like to know is an annex 6 the form i need, can i collect one from the courts or download one from somewhere. As i have the Danish child support order do i need an order from the courts here ?? How do REMO deal with arrears ??

Curlysadie

Hey all, its a great relief to find others in a similar boat to myself!!

My Sons father moved to Spain over a year ago and occasionally puts small amounts of money in my Sons bank as and when he feels like it.

Up until now I have bit my lip, I was determined that I would feel better knowing I provided everything myself for my Son. However, I feel that in doing this I am failing my Son. It makes me mad that my Son should go without when his Dad lives the high life!

I am ready to purse this route with the REMO thingy, however before I do I just wanted to know if you have or know anyone that has had any luck with it? In my reading so far I can't see that anyone has which is disappointing

Also how do courts calculate how much my Sons father will have to pay? I didn't have a court order for him when he lived here, and the CSA don't tell you what their earnings are.

If anyone has any helpful advice or can offer me some re-assurence that this does work I would be really grateful!!!

All the best

Malcolm2020

I am looking for any experience of successful REMO applications from UK to an EU country. Have yours been successful yet? If so how long? and my big question is if the REMO is granted in the other EU country would the absent paying parent be liable for this if they ever came back to the UK? If they didn't pay the maintenance (where the order was granted in that EU country) would they be liable for that arrears/debt when they eventually move back to UK? If not how do I make sure they are liable if they ever return to this country? Also if they move from that EU country to another (not necessarily the UK) is the order still valid, or do I need to start the process again in the new country? My problem is the absent NON-PAYING parent keeps moving jobs and countries regularly. Total nightmare.

Thanks

Malcolm2020

oh and CurlySadie - I am in the same boat. Didn't go through CSA when other parent lived in this country. They paid the odd £5-£30 very occasionally, and naiively I thought I was the better/bigger person and didn't want to ask them for anything. I was proud to stand on my on two feet and almost too proud to insist ion anything. I also knew if I persued maintenance that the absent parent would take it out on the child and my child would be the one to suffer.
Only recently as I've been struggling financially have I realised this has been to the detriment of my child, and is a complete injustice. It hadn't paid to take the moral high ground, and to protect my child from the wrath of the oher aprent - but now I'm ready for battle. Hope you are too - good luck

gutinstinct

HELP!!! can someone please tell me if a remo can be challenged in a uk court? My partner has a child who moved to germany with her english mother and he has always paid an agreed amount of maintenance since he split with his ex. He has always had to fight to keep contact with his child. Her mother has broken a uk contact order and he had to court in germany to get in reinforced. She has yet again broken this court order and refuses to comply. She now has sent solicitors letters and emails to say she is taking him to court in germany for maintenance and using the dusseldorf table as a calculation. She is demanding that he now pays 100% of financial upkeep for his daughter including private health insurance and a huge list of other things, he has offered to pay half the costs but she refuses. Surely she cannot do this? We are not wealthy and have limited funds and a family here in England to support however his ex dosnt consider this to be important. She dosnt work in Germany and lives with a wealthy german businessman. He is continuing to pay maintenance while all this is going on and has tried negotiating with her but she will not see reason. We have done a csa calculation and offered her the amount she would get if she had stayed in the uk but she refuses anything other than what shes demanding. We are worried sick that he wont see his daughter again. If he refuses to pay what the german courts insist and forces her to bring the case to the uk can he challenge it??????

mama7

I have today emailed my local court to ask their advice on how to start this process against my ex husband who has been living in New Zealand for the last 2 years. Since our split in March 2010 he has paid csa for a grand total of 6 months for our 7 children. I can imagine it will be a long and difficult process but I am not going to give up.

CakeCrusader

Hi,

I know that this is an old thread, I'm just hoping that someone can help.

My son's father left the UK for Ireland when my son was 3 (he's now 14), we had an arrangement via the CSA which was finalised a few months before he left. In the 10 years he's been there contact between him and our son has been sopradic; 18 months between visits which last of 1 hour when he's hungover and in between him visiting his friends or other family, a rare phone call, one letter (in 10 years) and a few emails. Maintenance has always been paid but he's never increased it since the assessment in the UK and has a far better job now. He married 6 years ago and they have two children.

A year and a half ago he paid the usual one hour visit and was hungover (again). He ended up being verbally abusive towards our child, and, as a result, our child decided not to see him for a while. His father then said he was going to stop paying maintenance. I've tried to sort this out but he won't reply to my emails or answer my calls. I had one payment in November as I begged his wife to speak to him, however, because I didn't know that it was in my son's account (the ex won't change the bank details over so that it goes into mine) and I didn't say 'thank you' there was no more.

I've been given stupid reasons for the lack of maintenance from his family; he doesn't feel as though we were grateful for his maintenance/exchange rate is high/he's been under the threat of redundancy for 5 years/I don't send enough pictures etc. I used to use his maintenance to pay for my son to have physiotherapy as the NHS could only see him once a month and this wasn't helping. He's also at a private school (which I have paid for myself) as they are the only local school that can give him the support that he needs. He's dyspraxic and has borderline aspergers so won't cope in a large class and his social skills problems make him a magnet for bullies.

I filled a Remo at the start of April and have just received a letter from the Courts of Justice, saying that it's now gone to the court in Ireland. I have no idea what will happen next, I didn't swear an affidavit, nor did they ask for any other details. I supplied birth certificates/bank details/doctors records and the original CSA assessment with the form. Was this right? As the maintenance has never been increased will the court be able to do this or will they use the old CSA assessment? Any idea how long this will take?

Sorry for the essay.

Thank you.

PlayingHardball

Hi All,

I am glad to see this thread is still active and hopefully helping those of us who find ourselves in these terrible circumstances of a non-paying NRP who lives abroad.

If I can just say to those still fighting, DO NOT GIVE UP. Be persistent, make a pest of yourselves by calling REGULARLY for updates on your REMO applications, hound whoever your contacts are at their offices. Call weekly! I was unfortunately going through the process when there were changes being made to the way REMO was managed - my contact office changed (nobody told me, of course) nightmare. Hope that you are all sorted and know who you need to contact for updates to your applications, if not, spend time to find out. Crucial.

My REMO was against my ex who was living in Germany for 3 years. In the end I had success, via a different route. Be assured there are lots of us on this thread that HAVE HAD SUCCESS though via the REMO route, there is no reason why you can't too!

My success came as follows: I previously had a CSA case while NRP still lived in the UK. He moved to Germany, CSA closed the case. Not only did I then apply for REMO, I also took on the CSA and fought them for closing the case. I had a loophole in that the NRP still owned a home in the UK (he rented this out). I won against the CSA at a tribunal hearing, I managed to prove that the NRP was 'habitually resident' due to his property, I claimed he still had 'ties' to this country, regardless of where he worked. The judge agreed with me, and I jumped for joy when I got my tribunal letter telling me I had won my case. My DD was with me, she jumped too! lol

For me I didn't need to use REMO, but had my CSA case not been won by me, I would have fought tooth and nail and not given up on the REMO route. After 3.5 years of him living in Germany, we were starting to get somewhere with the German Remo office, but I can't tell anyone how long it would have taken before success I'm afraid, because the next thing that happened was the NRP moved back to the UK!

Unfortunately for him I was determined not to give up, mainly for my DD, but partly because it is morally wrong for a parent to not support their child, no matter what the circumstances.

He moved back, I informed the CSA, the CSA have been brilliant I have to say. At times I even felt sorry for the NRP (stupid, I know).

I was checking my bank account on line one night and got quite a shock to see I had 2 deposits from DWP for several thousand pounds. This was backdated child support payments dated back to the time he left the UK. If I hadn't fought the CSA on the 'habitually resident' clause, I wouldn't have had this, and I am not sure if Germany would have back dated money to me once the NRP was no longer living on their turf.

I have a final tribunal hearing pending which should happen pretty soon, for the final leg of the journey with the NRP (DD is no longer qualifying age) The NRP, of course, didn't like that he was 'forced' to pay us so he has gone down the 'self employed' route. I don't think this will help him much as he has made such a bad name for himself with both the CSA and tribunal services, I think his past non-comliance and lies will most certainly go against him.

So, in summary, I just want to say to everyone going through the REMO route, you will succeed if you work at it. Check out the others successes in this thread, AnxiousMum comes to mind but there are many others too.

Good luck! And turn over any rock, go any route you need to in order to get the support from the NRP

mama7

Glad to hear you have had success it gives me some hope. I received a call last week from the courts 10 weeks after my initial email :eek: anyway they took lots of details and said they will now look into the correct process for New Zealand and we will take it from there. Unfortunately the person assigned to deal with my case spends most days in court so everything is going to take a long time it seems but I won't give up!

galangm8

PlayingHardball wrote: »

Hi All,

I am glad to see this thread is still active and hopefully helping those of us who find ourselves in these terrible circumstances of a non-paying NRP who lives abroad.

If I can just say to those still fighting, DO NOT GIVE UP. Be persistent, make a pest of yourselves by calling REGULARLY for updates on your REMO applications, hound whoever your contacts are at their offices. Call weekly! I was unfortunately going through the process when there were changes being made to the way REMO was managed - my contact office changed (nobody told me, of course) nightmare. Hope that you are all sorted and know who you need to contact for updates to your applications, if not, spend time to find out. Crucial.

My REMO was against my ex who was living in Germany for 3 years. In the end I had success, via a different route. Be assured there are lots of us on this thread that HAVE HAD SUCCESS though via the REMO route, there is no reason why you can't too!

My success came as follows: I previously had a CSA case while NRP still lived in the UK. He moved to Germany, CSA closed the case. Not only did I then apply for REMO, I also took on the CSA and fought them for closing the case. I had a loophole in that the NRP still owned a home in the UK (he rented this out). I won against the CSA at a tribunal hearing, I managed to prove that the NRP was 'habitually resident' due to his property, I claimed he still had 'ties' to this country, regardless of where he worked. The judge agreed with me, and I jumped for joy when I got my tribunal letter telling me I had won my case. My DD was with me, she jumped too! lol

For me I didn't need to use REMO, but had my CSA case not been won by me, I would have fought tooth and nail and not given up on the REMO route. After 3.5 years of him living in Germany, we were starting to get somewhere with the German Remo office, but I can't tell anyone how long it would have taken before success I'm afraid, because the next thing that happened was the NRP moved back to the UK!

Unfortunately for him I was determined not to give up, mainly for my DD, but partly because it is morally wrong for a parent to not support their child, no matter what the circumstances.

He moved back, I informed the CSA, the CSA have been brilliant I have to say. At times I even felt sorry for the NRP (stupid, I know).

I was checking my bank account on line one night and got quite a shock to see I had 2 deposits from DWP for several thousand pounds. This was backdated child support payments dated back to the time he left the UK. If I hadn't fought the CSA on the 'habitually resident' clause, I wouldn't have had this, and I am not sure if Germany would have back dated money to me once the NRP was no longer living on their turf.

I have a final tribunal hearing pending which should happen pretty soon, for the final leg of the journey with the NRP (DD is no longer qualifying age) The NRP, of course, didn't like that he was 'forced' to pay us so he has gone down the 'self employed' route. I don't think this will help him much as he has made such a bad name for himself with both the CSA and tribunal services, I think his past non-comliance and lies will most certainly go against him.

So, in summary, I just want to say to everyone going through the REMO route, you will succeed if you work at it. Check out the others successes in this thread, AnxiousMum comes to mind but there are many others too.

Good luck! And turn over any rock, go any route you need to in order to get the support from the NRP

EXCELLENT POST , brilliant result.:T