csa advice please?

emlou2009

this is a bit of a long story and a little complicated so please bear with me!

first of all, OH was out of work years ago and because he failed to sign on for JSA the CSA decided he was liable for arrears for his daughter for that time which they took directly from his wages at the rate of £300 pcm, this also incorporated his new monthly payment, which has absolutely crippled us! at the time the amount repayable was determined as he was living back at home with his parents.

roll forward a few years to april this year, he is still paying the CSA £300 pcm but now living with me and his new son who is a few weeks old at the time, so he rang the CSA for a re-assessment which they actually do rather promptly, and this week sent through the letter to say what he now has to pay.
also, 2 weeks ago we had a letter through to say actually they are very sorry but they have been taking too much and we are owed money, £400! however they cant give it to us, we have to get that back from his ex! needless to say we didnt for a second consider asking for it back, we are not that harsh.

the problem is, OH was told on the phone two months ago that he had paid off all of the arrears, yet they are still taking the £300 from his wages each month, we have now had his payslip through today and they have taken it again! so thats 3 months now since they told us he had paid them off but they are still taking the amount. he rang them this evening and was told to just cancel his payment to them, but obviously he cant! he was then told he can get his money back, but how can they give it back if they cant give the other £400 back? the woman then hung up on him as it was nearly 8pm and they were about to close so we couldnt ask any more questions :rolleyes:

basically, we have had phone confirmation two months ago that he was paying too much, since then they have taken 3 payments at too high a rate, we have had 1 letter to state that the amount was to be amended two months ago which it hasnt, another letter with his re-assessment, yet we are still in a totally messed up situation money-wise, in fact its possible that due to this we will now lose a house we are meant to be moving into from our one bed studio flat unless we can borrow yet more money from parents! its a impossible situation.

if anyone has any advice on what we can do to speed things up, please can i have it? or any other advice at all? we are at our wits end tonight

ceebeeby

I've just posted on another thread about the madness of the CSA. One seemingly nuts tryign to take a guy to court who's already paid - any you're told you pay too much, but they won't stop taking the too much amount!!

Are you in contact with the ex? I can understand you not wanting to take back the £400 but can you elt her know what the new amount is, and that obviously from now on, even if more is given, please can the overpayment be returned - I think that's fair (and if it were me that was the recipient, I'd think it was fair too). I suppose depends on how well you keep in touch.

Good luck

What an absolute waste of an agency that could have done so much good!!!

emlou2009

its not going to be an option to ask for the money back really, relations there are pretty terrible! she wont let OH see his daughter because when he had her to stay for a weekend last year he bathed her but didnt brush her hair straight away which made it go knotty. obviously that means he's a neglectful father that doesnt deserve to see his daughter!! we will be making her aware that technically she does owe it to us but we arent going to ask for it for fear of making the situation even worse. she wont regard it as fair at all, we can only assume she hasnt heard the re-assessment figure yet as we havent had a torrent of abuse yet, still playing the waiting game on that one...

emlou2009

is there any way he can stop them from taking it direct from his wages or is it only them that can stop this?

kelloggs36

It is not true that they cannot refund you if they don't get the money back from the ex. What they can do is to make a recovery from her indirectly by reducing your ongoing maintenance to a figure below your normal figure until you recover the amount due - this is normal practice. Clearly they have not set up the adjustment on the accounts yet - keep chasing them and do it via your MP who should be able to get a quicker response.

emlou2009

thank you for that, i passed that on to OH straight away

an update - OH has phoned the CSA this morning, they have said that although they take the money directly from his earnings and he gets paid on the last working day of the month, they dont actually recieve it til the 23rd? so they can refund the last two months as they havent passed it on but refused to as yet as it needs to get passed to another team first and they havent received what they have taken from this month yet so they cant refund that yet either.

why is it so complicated?! and they are all so rude - why cant they have depts that deal with NRP's that avoid/dont want to pay and ones that are quite happy to and save the rude staff for the ones that should be spoken to like that!!

pd001

emlou2009 wrote: »

thank you for that, i passed that on to OH straight away

an update - OH has phoned the CSA this morning, they have said that although they take the money directly from his earnings and he gets paid on the last working day of the month, they dont actually recieve it til the 23rd? so they can refund the last two months as they havent passed it on but refused to as yet as it needs to get passed to another team first and they havent received what they have taken from this month yet so they cant refund that yet either.

why is it so complicated?! and they are all so rude - why cant they have depts that deal with NRP's that avoid/dont want to pay and ones that are quite happy to and save the rude staff for the ones that should be spoken to like that!!

One very simple solution to your difficulties when dealing with the csa on the phone is.....don't do it!
I have never dealt with the csa on the phone. Insist on everything in writing from now on and your difficulties in dealing with rude and ignorant people will be over.

iluvfreebies

Hi OP
What they need to complete is a Reg 10 - mention this to them - its where they reduce future maintenance payments to allow for the amount of overpayment - it may be that the deduction from earnings wasn't reissued in time for your oh's payroll to put the new amount into effect but you should be able to check with them that the deo has been reissued.