CSA and benefit

sazzler73

My partner is the NRP of 2 children. We have paid his ex wife maintence for 9 years through a consent order that we both agreed on. The children are now 16 and going on to do A' levels. Our consent order says to pay till they are 17 or till secondary education ends.

Im not sure if secondary education means A'levels or school.

The other shock was last week we received a letter from the court saying she is taking us to court to get the consent order revoked so the CSA can have rights to get money from us. May i add we have always paid on time and paid towards scholl uniforms clothes etc. She is all about money and she is horrible to the kids and all she cares about is money.

I have been worrying as I am on long term incapacity benefit and have been since 2002, so really only have one wage coming in and nothing left at the end of the month, if the csa take 20% of his wages we will be in trouble and we have a 3 year old of our own to worry about. If we had the money we would pay her more, so its not like we want to get out of paying, its just that we have no means of getting more money.

My question is, i read this on the csa website and does this mean my partner will pay flat rate cause i receive incapacity benefit.


The flat rate of child maintenance is £5 a week - no matter how many children are involved.
The non-resident parent pays a flat rate for child maintenance if:

• their net weekly income is between £5 and £100, or
• they or their partner who they live with gets Income Support, income-based Jobseeker's Allowance, income based Employment and Support Allowance or Pension Credit, or
• they are getting one of the following benefits:
  • contribution-based Jobseeker’s Allowance
  • State Retirement Pension
  • Incapacity Benefit
  • Carer's Allowance
  • Widowed Mother’s Allowance, Widowed Parent's Allowance, Widow's Pension
  • Severe Disablement Allowance
  • Industrial Injuries Benefit
  • Maternity Allowance
  • a training allowance approved by the Department for Work and Pensions
  • Armed Forces Compensation Scheme payments
  • a War Disablement or War Widow’s Pension
  • Bereavement Allowance
  • a social security benefit paid by a country outside the United Kingdom.

Non-resident parents who pay the flat rate because they receive a benefit, pension or allowance will pay no child maintenance if they share the care of a qualifying child for at least 52 nights a year. Non-resident parents who pay the flat rate because they have net weekly income of £100 or less have no further reduction because of shared care and they continue to pay £5.
An exception to this rule is if a non-resident parent is liable for child maintenance to more than one parent with care, but does not share the care of all the qualifying children. If this is the case, the non-resident parent will still have to pay the share of the child maintenance due to any parent with care with whom there are no shared care arrangements.




My partner earns £313 a week.


Any advice please as all this worrying is making my chronic illness worse:(

camsresident

Not sure of answer to your question - but just to say CSA told me today flat rate is £6.60. So guess website is out of date.

kelloggs36

If the NRP partner gets incapacity benefit, the NRP would still have to pay, as it states if 'they' get incapacity benefit, not 'they or their partner'.

sazzler73

Thanks for your replies

I am the partner of the NRP and i am on benefit the nrp is working

anyone know if we would pay flat rate or basic rate

Thanks

Caz3121

as you have a child with you the assessment will be based on his £313 less 15% for your child then 20% of that...so approx £53 less any discount for overnights

however

If you are in receipt of tax credits (working and/or child) they can also include these as income so the assessment could be higher

it would not be the flat rate as you are not on any of the benefits that apply to a partner (first part of your list) and your partner is not in receipt of any of the benefits that apply to the NRP

AnxiousMum

Yes, A levels are very much school - it's the last two years of high school!