LO - How can they be paid off

sarahx1

Hi there

Had some conflicting info on this, hoping I can seek some advise.

I have four LO soon to be five. The CSA is on to the third commital to prison proceedings. None have actually made it infront of a judge, my ex and court presenting officer have made an arrangement which he has failed to stick to.

The couple of payments he made have come off the LO but I have since been told that a LO can only be reduced once an arrangement has been made infront of a judge.

So which is it? Does anyone know?

kelloggs36

It won't be reduced -only paid off. Why has the case not made it to court yet? I would be jumping up and down as he has failed to honour the agreement and let the judge make the decision as to what to do. It won't be adjusted in court until it is paid off.

sarahx1

So can he come to an arrangement to pay off a LO outside of court? I mean who gets to say that £x he will pay will go to the LO and not current maintenance?

I have jumped up and down about it failing to go infront of a judge to no avail. I now have a new enforcement officer who knows nothing about my case or my ex. By her own admission she rang him and made an arrangement to pay £126 per week back in May and his first payment was due end of June via direct debit. I argued endlessly as this did not make any sense to me. He is weekly paid so why make an arrangement for monthly and given him 5 weeks before he has to make his first payment. Her response - direct debit is the preferred method. Despite me saying that a SO weekly would mean we would know sooner when a payment failed and could action something else. Explained to her the history he is a prolific non payer. why they did not do a DEO straight away. Her response - I have had the case for 2 days and I have made alot of progress!! She admitted she had not read my file and dived in!

What was funny was I rang up to see if the direct debit had worked and she advised me she would look at the case and tell me. It had failed and she was astonished why an arrangement had been made and DEO was not enforced. I asked her to explain why she had made that decision as she was my caseworker!! the line went awfully quiet - what a joke.

kelloggs36

Yes, he can come to an agreement to pay off the arrears at any point, but if he doesn't stick to it, then you need to start screaming and making sure they do something.

kelloggs36

Even the courts will only deal with the LO figure and not ongoing maintenance - my ex was in court under a committal, and the judge ordered him to pay £50 per week towards the arrears (there were 25k to pay) - no mention of arrears. He paid this for a year, but all it meant was that he went £76.73 per week further into arrears! I have finally got the money as they finally realised that he was non-compliant (it took them 8 years for it to dawn on them!) He had lots of chances in court, and finally he was forced to remortgage his house in order to avoid jail - even then he stalled and eeked it out as long as possible. However, he lost in the end, and paid up £25k in a lump sum and then started the stupid process again when he owed the final £3k. Again, 2 more years down the line, and he has finally paid it all off. It is frustrating, but you must fight on and complain to the CSA at their lack of action. When they give a deadline for something call them on that day and ask what they intend to do next - basically, keep on and on at them.