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Housing Benefit & Child Maintenance

Sparklypixie
Posts: 4 Newbie
Hi, sorry if this has been brought up before but I did do a good search and have many various phonecalls and nobody can seem to give me a definitive answer so I'd be grateful if anybody could shed some light.
I am a single parent and have been since my son was about 4 months old (he's now 4) his dad and I took a while to sort out regular child maintenance payments but he's now very good at giving me the money monthly. This is a private arrangement and doesn't involve the CSA.
At the end of last year I had to pay some of the child maintenance (which is cash) into my bank account to cover costs over Christmas. In the new year I had to fill out a housing benefit review form and provide proofs so I explained this payment into my account.
Now the council want details of my child maintenance, how much it is and when it started, and they want proof (it was in cash! so they have suggested a letter from my ex partner would suffice).
I know that since April 2010 child maintenance has been disregarded as far as benefits go, this change was generally for the purposes of people on Jobseekers allowance/income support as far as I know, neither of which I claim/have claimed. Also, the CSA seems to say that private arrangements don't need to be disclosed to anybody, unless I'm misunderstanding this.
My ex partner started paying regular child maintenance at the end of 2007/beginning of 2008. I am worried that if the council has this information they will go back in my housing benefit payments, recalculate and say I owe them a lot of money and I can barely live on what they give me as it is.
I have phoned the CSA who can't really help me further, I've thought about citizens advice but they have a complicated system involving phoning to make an appointment and going in to see them, all of which takes time which is difficult to fit around work and child, and the council want the info and proofs by next monday.
Any help/advice gratefully received.
Pixie
I am a single parent and have been since my son was about 4 months old (he's now 4) his dad and I took a while to sort out regular child maintenance payments but he's now very good at giving me the money monthly. This is a private arrangement and doesn't involve the CSA.
At the end of last year I had to pay some of the child maintenance (which is cash) into my bank account to cover costs over Christmas. In the new year I had to fill out a housing benefit review form and provide proofs so I explained this payment into my account.
Now the council want details of my child maintenance, how much it is and when it started, and they want proof (it was in cash! so they have suggested a letter from my ex partner would suffice).
I know that since April 2010 child maintenance has been disregarded as far as benefits go, this change was generally for the purposes of people on Jobseekers allowance/income support as far as I know, neither of which I claim/have claimed. Also, the CSA seems to say that private arrangements don't need to be disclosed to anybody, unless I'm misunderstanding this.
My ex partner started paying regular child maintenance at the end of 2007/beginning of 2008. I am worried that if the council has this information they will go back in my housing benefit payments, recalculate and say I owe them a lot of money and I can barely live on what they give me as it is.
I have phoned the CSA who can't really help me further, I've thought about citizens advice but they have a complicated system involving phoning to make an appointment and going in to see them, all of which takes time which is difficult to fit around work and child, and the council want the info and proofs by next monday.
Any help/advice gratefully received.
Pixie
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Comments
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I think you will find they just keep a record of it. I disclosed mine last Year when it started again after my ex had a period of unemployment and there was no change to my benefit at all, they just kept the letter and asked why I hadn't disclosed it before and I just said "well I know it's disregarded so no need" so long as you are not getting thousands I'm sure it will be fine. Only thing is I do wonder how long this disregard thing will last, so if they change it again they will know what we are all getting from CSA / Ex Partners and we might get a nasty shock!
Edit: The disregard was from October 08 so I see why you may be worried about the bit before.....0 -
Thanks for your advice on this. I bit the bullet and sent the council all the info they were after including a letter from my ex partner stating that £180 per month child maintenance was given for at least the last 2 years, with an estimated start date of July 2008.
The council have now responded with a 33 page document stating I owe them £800 and they will claim it back through ongoing payments. Am I wrong in thinking they had to disregard these child maintenance payments as of October 2008. Also, can they legally do this when the letter states an estimated start date? If I had a difficult relationship with my ex partner, he could fathom up any figure he liked in his letter and there's no way of proving it either way. Can they actually do that? And if they can't how do I challenge that??
I have searched for answers and nobody seems to have any. Any advice would be gratefully received as at the moment I'm quite upset and worried about the whole thing and have more paper than I know what to do with!!
Pixie
Also, how far back can the council backdate the money they SAY I owe them? It seems totally unfair that if they owe you money they will backdate it 6 months (or is it 3 now?) but if you owe them money, they can backdate indefinitely it would seem. I'm sure they're within their rights to do that, just seems a bit unfair.0 -
Appeal - it has been disregarded since October 2008 so they would only be able to claim back from you an overpayment arising between July 2008 and October 2008.Olympic Countdown Challenge #145 ~ DFW Nerd #389 ~ Debt Free Date: [STRIKE]December 2015[/STRIKE] September 2015
:j BabySpendalot arrived 26/6/11 :j0 -
Yeah it's disregarded, maintenance should not be included at all. Ring the council and ask them why you owe the money when it shouldn't be included in the calculation.
What's on your entitlement letters?0 -
It sounds silly but I can't really make head nor tail of them. They've sent me a 33 page document. The 1st 2 pages I am taking to mean are condensed workings of the following pages which appear to be individual entitlement letters. However, even the condensed version doesn't make sense. It appears to be a breakdown of the tax periods between August 2008 and now and what my weekly benefit was. Actually the housing benefit goes from Aug 08-Ongoing and the council tax benefit appears to be from August 08 to May 2010. They note what my weekly benefit apparently should be but not what it actually was or the difference. The rest of the pages are tabulated entitlement letters which seem to detail further these "overpayments" made by the council.0
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They sound similar to the letters we send, and we don't send the working out part, which apparently legally we are allowed to do!
Give your council a ring and ask for a letter of explanation of the overpayment. Have you rang them yet and ask where the overpayment has come from?0 -
Child support was calculated as income with your HB/CTB whether it was paid via the CSA or private, so at the end of 2007 you should have informed them that you were in fact getting this income.
From 27th October 2008 all child support payments were fully disregarded when calculating HB/CTB.
So from your posts you sound as if you do have an overpayment from end of 2007 until the 26th October 2008 when you should have been declaring your child maintenace payments. They disregarded the first £15 of child maintenace then used the rest of maintenace as income.
From 27th October 2008 until present date no overpayment should have arisen as child maintenance is disregarded.*SIGH*0 -
Sparklypixie wrote: »Also, how far back can the council backdate the money they SAY I owe them? It seems totally unfair that if they owe you money they will backdate it 6 months (or is it 3 now?) but if you owe them money, they can backdate indefinitely it would seem. I'm sure they're within their rights to do that, just seems a bit unfair.*SIGH*0
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Thanks for all your advice. My private agreement was a very shaky one at the outset and my partner will only make payments in cash which leads to no proof. I duly filled in every question legitimately on the form regarding income from various areas and phoned the council to ask if it was something that needed to be included because it wasn't specified and I was told no. I realise that a phone call is no help and in retrospect I should have got written confirmation of this. I don't feel I have wilfully withheld anything and I have been as honest and upfront as I could have been with the knowledge I had at the time.
I will definitely contact the council to appeal what appears to be an incorrect judgement. Thanks for everybody's advice.0
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