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Soubrette

justjulies wrote: »

it is a LTD company.i think he is the sole employee, don't no if this makes a difference

Who are the shareholders?

You should be able to get this information from companies house too.

Sou

justjulies

the shareholder is just showing her

speedster

you're up against it, i'm afraid.

he clearly knows the system and if he is not the majority shareholder then for all intents and purposes, the csa are screwed.

you have 2 choices. firstly, you spend years getting more and more bitter and drag it through appeal, tribunal etc, etc. or the alternative is try for a private agreement.

it took my stooopid ex nigh on 3 years to realise that i had the csa tied up in knots and get fed up with a fiver a week. SE are hard enough to deal with, LTD is a whole different ball game with corporate law coming into play.

finally, she asked if we could come to a private arrangement. certainly was my reply. how much are you looking at???

first thing i did was to write out a cheque for £200 for daughters school trip. we haven't looked back since. she just lets me know what to buy or gets it and tells me how much she's spent and i hand over the cash. end of.

i have good contact (via blistering court sucess!!) so we agreed that she runs her house, i run mine and i'll cough up whatever she asks (within reason!) until daughter leaves education.

far better without the csa involved. my advice is to get shot of them if at all possible as they make already strained relationships a whole heap worse.

good luck, whatever path you take.

Soubrette

justjulies wrote: »

the shareholder is just showing her

He's just made things a hell of a lot easier for you as long as he is the sole money earning employee. You would wonder why someone so important to the business was paid so little

She is probably also employed in a book keeping/admin type role but if he is the one that actually brings in the money it is a simple assumption to make that no him, no company.

I would ask the CSA to reassess his income based on the fact that he is diverting his income to his wife in order to avoid paying child maintenance, if you have any evidence of a lavish lifestyle (large house, nice car, nice hols) then also complete the variation with regards to lifestyle inconsistent with income. You can post the CSA as much evidence as you like at this stage, I sent them quite a lot but in retrospect I wouldn't have bothered as it is likely you will fail. When you do fail then ask for a Tribunal.

It will be a long wait but for my Tribunal the ex was asked to provide 3 (I think) years of accounts even though there was only 1 year of child maintenance in dispute - that was both business and personal, savings, loans, credit cards etc. He was asked uncomfortable questions about money going into his account and out of his account and at the end of it he was given a nominal salary on which his child maintenance would be calculated (I think he thought that if he took no dividends, he would be ok on his minimum wage claim). Now he has had a poor year where he only worked for approx 4 months of it (more now that time has passed). If I wanted to get every penny I am entitled to then I could ask for another variation based on his admitted hourly rate during the Tribunal. I am not going to because he now spends a reasonable amount of money on his children directly and pays a reasonable amount to me based on what our children cost to bring up.

The inconvenience to you is very little but it may be a grind, you have to keep hassling the CSA, you have to unfortunately maintain an interest in someone's life that you probably wish would allow you to move on (nosing around their accounts, finding out who holds the mortgage on their house etc) but that shouldn't take too long, all that stuff is available on the internet at a small cost. He is the one that has to provide the evidence etc - you get to see every bit of the evidence.

The downside imo is that the relationship with your ex is bound to get worse. At the moment he is smugly thinking about how he has put one over on the CSA and over you (forgetting of course that the person he is cheating is his child). He will not be happy if you are tenacious enough to actual get him to pay a fair proportion of his income towards the upkeep of his child. He may take this out on your or even worse your child.

Kelloggs has spent years chasing her erstwhile ex for maintenance money but she received a payout of about £30,000 in the end from the extremely non compliant non resident parent. It can be done but like I say it sounds like it will be a grind.

Good luck

Sou

kelloggs36

Yes - my case was 9 years from start to the bitter end, but I won in the end so it can be done!

justjulies

thanks for your help it sounds great. i have had a variation which was sucessfull on the grounds of income inconsistant of income.He has disputed this and i am awaiting csa decision,have been told to expect a change in circustances.as he is in the process of selling the business and advertised turnover i sent this to the csa,who awarded £130.per week due to this information,Iam sure he will do his best to avoid this as his previous payments were £3.per week.I have spent 4 years trying to find this information and i dont want to be back to square one. He tells the csa he is an employee,his wife supplies.his wage slips,and she is the director i cant find his name on any details, but i know he runs the place.She has her own job and has no input other than being named as director.

PlayingHardball

I hate people like your ex. I hope he gets what is coming to him!! I don't mean to sound harsh, but when parents pull every tactic in the book to avoid giving their children what they are entitled to (financially AND emotionally), it certainly tells you what they are made of in the first place! I often shake my head and wonder what the heck I saw in my ex (32 years ago!) I guess people change and I suppose money is the root of all evil.

Do you think these guys feel any guilt? Or do you think its just two fingers up to us PWC. Do you think they really don't GET that its their kids they hurt? I can't figure it out, I really can't.

Soubrette

PlayingHardball wrote: »

Do you think these guys feel any guilt? Or do you think its just two fingers up to us PWC. Do you think they really don't GET that its their kids they hurt? I can't figure it out, I really can't.

I'm afraid this is precisely their justification - they are screwing over their ex and the system. (I have yet to come across an NRP who although not paying maintenance is actually putting the equivalent money by for their child). Not one penny of their money is spent on the child (yep, it's running round naked, homeless and starving *rolleyes*)so why should the ex benefit from their income blah blah blah.

Not to be one sided though - there are plenty of PWCs who do exactly the same but with access rather than maintenance money.

Some people hate their ex more than they love their child. Some people hate their ex so much that they generalise that to a mistrust of all women/men - both those reactions are extremely sad.

Justjules - I can't believe you had the CSA approve a variation - there must be an award for that As I recall when mine was turned down and I disputed it, then the offer was that a different case worker would look at it, it was turned down again and then I asked for a Tribunal with a forensic accountant present.

If your ex was paying £3 per week - are you on CSA1? I ask because on CSA2, even those on benefits are supposed to pay £5pw.

If he is selling the business - won't that lump sum count as income too? I would ask the CSA to assess that too.

Also one word of caution - if your ex chooses to have no income ie he gives up work and is supported by his wife then the CSA can do nothing as he has no income to assess - this (unlike some of the advice offered on this board) is perfectly legitimate, I personallly know one person who had done this.

Sou

justjulies

just heard back from csa back to square one .On paper everything is hers .I hope she leaves him and takes it all.what can i do next i dont know.smile and carry on :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

PlayingHardball

Well, I just want to say, as frustrating as it is, don't give up, stay strong. Your next step is surely to appeal the CSA decision and go down the tribunal route again, it sounds like you would have a similar situation as Soubrette, and she was successful at the tribunal stage.

Stay strong!