Appealing against CSA clerical errors made in 2002 and 2003 – how?

JasAIR

kelloggs36 wrote: »

The only way to get them to change the assessments is to appeal - the appeal tribunal will look at the facts of the case and decide if the CSA is correct or not - and they ruled that they were correct.

Lawyer says I cannot appeal a clerical error....:cool:

JasAIR

missbunbury wrote: »

Uh...wouldn't this make it less likely that he is right, not more?

Please provide the correct advice.

missbunbury wrote: »

If I were you I would speak to a lawyer who is trained in child support law.

I thought Durham Legal Services is trained in child support law?:cool:

missbunbury wrote: »

There's nowhere near enough concrete information in your posts to allow me to make an informed judgement, but it strikes me that if, as you say, you are entirely unconcerned about future repercussions, you'd be best off leaving the whole thing alone rather than consulting unsuitable professionals and acting on their advice.

Im am making enquiries from others from their experience rather than academic qualification. Why would I be concerened about repercussions? I can just pay it off and the matter is finished. I only have a problem with liars cheats and fraudsters, whether civil service or not.

missbunbury wrote: »

If on the other hand you are wanting to get it sorted, my first avenue to explore would be precisely how they came to the £0.00 allowance for travel to work costs. You may be assuming that they will have looked at where you lived and where you worked and doing the maths themselves, but in fact you would have been required to inform them of these costs, possibly with proof - if you never did this then that is where the £0.00 allowance comes from and you will struggle to have it overturned.

I sent pages and pages of train tickets to the CSA as requested, a SAR revealed them to be missing, and I now expect the CSA to say "prove you sent them" and since I dont have the evidence anymore, (I expected the CSA to be more professional than this) and I end up back into we agree to disagree. In any event I understood TTW allowance threshold kicked in when the postodes of home & work are more than a linear 150 miles a week, so at least the mileage should have been correct.

JasAIR

OK consensus says I cannot win this. If i cant even convince you lot with my point of arguments, then I certainly will not be able to convince the CSA.

My next card is this. Lets dangle a carrot.

I am happy to pay maintenance at the statutory UK rate (even though I currently have no legal obligation to do so), but on condition the CSA complies with its rules and backdates the assessment?

Anyone tried similar?

The alternative is to pass the file to a UK tabloid showing where false representation was made, the TTW and postcodes, the criminal record of the bailiff who tried to nick a car from near my mother house in 2006. I also have the name of the caseworker who made the decision and a google search pointing to her facebook account.

Im up for a laugh & have nothing to lose. The UK media love a nice corruption scandal and exposing cheats. If I have an unresolveable CSA complaint, then lets monetise it.

kelloggs36

they have made decisions and won't compromise in the way you describe. I do not believe that the errors are clerical but decisions? Each assessment invites you to appeal, it forms part of tne decisipn at tne end, so you can't claim you didn't know you could. Your reasons for leaving were your own decision, the CSA did not tell you to give your job up and leave; you decided that the csa had forced you into the decision but that was your own conclusion of your options. You deprived yourself to get the csa off your back and reduce the assessment, so their decision was correct. for the ttw t may have been the address they were using. Was it the right address? your dpa file should show the postcodes and mileage used

Sidekick_2

JasAIR wrote: »

Lawyer says I cannot appeal a clerical error....:cool:

Correct, but you can ask the CSA to review their assessment for errors ?? and when they refuse to review or correct an error,you can appeal that decision to a tribunal.;)

That is the advise you seek.:cool:

By the way Kelloggs is correct !

bdt1

Jas AIR

Kelloggs and Sidekick are right in what they say, believe me I know from experience of the whole appeals system, Stephen Lawson and Durham Legal Services.

If you have been advised you cannot appeal a clerical error, then I ask, when the incorrect clerical decision was made why did you neot appeal it then? It still isn't too late, as Kelloggs has explained, you can put in an appeal 'out of time', explain why it is out of time, and send evidence plus explanation etc etc. The CSA Appeals Dept will then no doubt refuse you an appeal, which then gives you FULL appeal rights. This means that you have the opportunity to apply to an Independent Appeal Tribunal for a Judge to decide if your appeal can progress.

The Judge will then make the decision and not the CSA! If allowed an appeal (as we were), then the Judge will request specific info from all parties and, all parties will be copied into all communication, with ample opportunity for comment. Then you can go along on the day and represent your case, whereby CSA will also attend, AND PWC if they choose so. The Judge will make a decision and it goes from there....................In our case CSA had to correct the incorrect assessments/decisions and recalculate the alleged 34k arrears (that never existed)....I strongly recommend you go for this.

With regard to Durham Legal Services, we paid good money for duff advice from them, we were told that if we went along to a Libility Order hearing 5t would be granted and nothing we could do, except in our case, Stephen Lawson told us, that there was a lot of action we could have taken prior to the LO Hearing as we owed no arrears prior to the mis-calculation and held all evidence that it was a gross error on CSA part.

Stephen LAwson was appaulled by DLS duff advice to us, i DID communicate this back to DLS, who refused to reimburse my money, and denied that we had been given the advice that we had from them - I would definitely steer claer of them as I have heard of several cases, whereby they are not the experts they claim to be!!

Rebecca01

As for the media , we all have a story to tell but everyone knows how bad the CSA is , hence this supposed overhaul.

So I don't think that threat would hold any weight.

JasAIR

All the advice I am being given here is about appealing a decision about depriving myself of income. It has never been my intention to appeal that decision, and it can stand.

The legislation says intentionally deprives himself of income, and my argument is my leaving employment was imposed because I did not have enough money to carry on the normal course of employment. The CSA disagrees as did the tribunals.

I never chose to appeal, that was a Durham legal Services approach. I now know it was the wrong approach.

Please can we discontinue discussing this point because it is not the basis of my enquiry.

JasAIR

My lawyer in Bahrain raised two points.

Point 1. The CSA made an error in calculating the TTW between two postcodes (which were correctly quoted on their document) saying it was £0.00. That is incorrect because CSA rules provide for 10p a mile for distances travelled that are more then 150 linear miles a week. The CSA asked for evidence of travel which I provided.

There are no appeal documents because it is not a decision. It is an error.

Point 2. The law said I am allowed to pay my own housing costs, and the CSA received a tenancy agreement. Instead the CSA said I am non-dependant. That is not true because I only have two relatives alive in the UK and neither their council tax records place them anywhere near my address of within 90 miles of it.

Again, no appeal documents because it is not a decision. It is an error.

If the CSA admits this is not an error or a mistake, then it can only be a deliberate intention to make a false representation about my circumstances. This may open a criminal aspect in this enquiry because the decision maker commits an offence under s.2 of the 2006 Fraud Act, or s.15(a)1 of the 1968 Theft Act and there is immunity from liability for civil servants.

Without allowing either of the above to be paid from my salary, a DEO ended my ability to carry on the normal court of my employment because I did not have enough resudial income to pay my travel to work costs.

I am open to suggestion on where we go from here?

Marisco

If you have no intention of returning to the UK, and the CSA cannot "get you" living in the UAE, why bother doing anything at all? If I were you I'd just leave it and move on. They are a huge (inefficient) gov dept, but they can probably hold out longer than you can, so TBH I'd just walk away, and save yourself a bucket load of grief