Private Agreements

schlaus

Hi Everyone, I am hoping someone can please advise me and my OH.

My OH has been paying throught the CSA for 12 years for his daughter who we see every other week for the whole weekend and reguarly take on a couple of holidays a year etc etc. We love my step daughter to absolute pieces and she never wants for anything and is the complete apple of both our eyes.

The CSA whenever they speak to my OH, they are always really nasty and treat him like a criminal which in his words 'make him feel sick to the stomach'. Now my OH has never not paid but when the CSA take it upon themselves that they think he has paid late they ring him up and speak to him as if he is not worthy to be a dad.
My oh always points out to them that he keeps the giro slips tells them the date he paid and tell them they should use their time more effectively to chase the dads that do not pay to which they do not apologise for making him feel worthless and hang up. He had a phone call a couple of weeks ago along the same lines which was the finally straw...

My oh is on amicable terms with his daughters mom so I suggested that a private agreement is set up, no diff in money etc it just cuts the CSA out and everyone is happy. After reading posts on here I advised hubby that he must insist the case is closed because there has been cases etc of the CSA not closing the case and the CSA coming after OH if his ex claims that he has not been paying.

OH's ex agreed to the agreement and we drafted up a letter for the ex to sign and she has queried the closure of the case and said she has spoken to the CSA and they say they can keep it open but put down that it has gone onto private agreement.

After the experience my oh has received from the CSA he does not trust them at all and thinks he could be opening himself up for a very big fall if he proceeded along this route. Now the ex wants to know his reasoning on why he wants to shut the case as the csa have told the ex it will all be ok.

OH would pay by dd into ex acc.

Please advise.:(

karenx

You would need to keep account of absolutly everything so if the CSA did come back to him you would have proof you have been paying. If paying by DD then make sure its labeled as "child maintenence" or if paying by cash make sure its all written down and get her to sign it to say she has recieved it.

schlaus

Thanx Karen:), would definately keep a close record of DD being apid and labelled.

OH thinks it defeats the whole point of having a private agreement if the CSA are still in the background as the whole reason to switch is to cut them out completley.

Just got to convince the ex to why the case needs to be closed with the CSA.

JOHNSTONE1

As long as there are no arrears to either the PWC or the SOS a case can be closed and there be no involvement from the CSA. However they do seem to suggest that cases are switched to Maintenance Direct which means the case is still open but the NRP pays straight to the PWC. This way if there was a breakdown in communication or the NRP stops paying for whatever reason the CSA can reinstate the case easily and resume taking payment whereas if the case is closed an application will need to be made again.

We understood that our PWC may be a little unsure about suddenly closing a case so agreed that we would go on Maintenance Direct for a while until she felt confident that payments would be made with out the CSA involvement. When she felt more confident she closed tha case and theres is now simply a private arrangement.

If he's been paying with no problems for the past however many years and has a good relationship with the mother I dont see why she wouldn't close the case but maybe she just feels a little unsure at this stage.

As long as you clearly mark payments as maintenance you are safe.

Hope that helps x

Auntyem

If the case went onto Maintenance Direct, I don't think the CSA would call to hassle for payment because the PWC would have to advise them if a payment was late or missing first.

So maybe that could be a compromise where the agro to your OH stops, but the ex still has the security of case open.

CSA_Debt_Bod

Schlaus,

If you do decide to leave the case open and go maintenance direct, make sure your OH receives notification in writing from the CSA that the case is now maintenance direct and that he doesn't need to pay anything through the CSA. Then he can be sure that there can be no chance that the PWC can say he hasn't paid her and arrears can accrue with the CSA. Of course she could still claim he hasn't paid her, but if the case is MD the CSA would not get involved (unless she asked for it to be changed back to agency collection, and then maintenance would start charging from that date and would not be backdated, and your OH would be advised in writing that the case was no longer MD).

Alternatively, you could leave the case as agency collection, but set up a more reliable method of payment than giro slips. Giro slips can lead to delays in payments being passed to the CSA and thus to the sort of late payment calls you describe. If your OH set up a standing order with the CSA and monitored it and made sure the payments were coming out of his bank on time every month and he followed the schedule issued by the CSA, he wouldn't get any late payment calls. Notice I said 'standing order' and not 'direct debit'. CSA are not good with direct debit and there is always the chance they could take the wrong amount (which breaches the direct debit code, but it still happens). Standing order is controlled by the NRP and the CSA could not take anything from his bank.

sandiep

I have resolved a situation whereby hubby has a bank account set up in his name for trust of his daughters. The maintenance payments are paid weekly into this account, by standing order. The daughters mother is an approved signatory so that she can withdraw from the account through the branch (it's a passbook account).

This means that it's always very clear where the money has come from into this account, and where it's been taken out and by whom. Hopefully, it's quite a watertight situation.

CSA_Debt_Bod

sandiep,

It's not a watertight situation if your husband has an open CSA case that hasn't been changed to maintenance direct. If he had an open case that was still agency collection he could risk a big bill for arrears, even though he could prove that he had been paying in to a bank account for his daughters. If the PWC said that these payments were not for child maintenance, the CSA would always side with her. It would be the same if the payments were made into a bank account in the PWC's name.

If your husband does not have an open CSA case, or his case has been changed to maintenance direct on the system, then it would be watertight.