CSA payment system changing .. please help and advise

fannyanna

skibadee wrote: »

As a NRP (not is choice by the way!! )...my OH has been paying maintenance through the CSA for 10 years.
Will he now have to pay a fee to carry on doing this?

No he could say to the ex let's sort out a private arrangement. If she refused she would need to apply to and pay the CSA to set up a case.

DX2

DX2 wrote: »

Starting from 2012, the Government plans to charge:

• £100 as an upfront fee (or £50 for parents on benefit) for those who want to use the future CSA. Only “Victims of domestic violence” will be exempt (although there is no detail on how this will be proved or checked).
• An on-going charge of between 7% and 12% on any maintenance paid to parents who rely on the future CSA to collect their child maintenance, as well as an extra 15-20% charge added to the non-resident parent’s payment.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

skibadee wrote: »

As a NRP (not is choice by the way!! )...my OH has been paying maintenance through the CSA for 10 years.
Will he now have to pay a fee to carry on doing this?

iluvfreebies

as far as i know the new proposals are being imposed to encourage people to do their best to make their own arrangements without involving the agency (you would be amazed at the number of new cases which are made after a couple have a falling out and then are closed within a few weeks when all is well again) having to pay £100 to make an application would of course stop these kind of applications which take up so much valuable processing time within the agency and allow staff to chase valid cases and get maintenance for kids who would never see a penny otherwise. I would imagine the reason for the domestic violence victims being exempt is that there is no option for them to try to arrange maintenance themselves so the agency would be their only option to obtain maintenance. I would imagine that there would have to be something recorded with the police / womens aid etc to show that abuse was a factor in the relationship but im sure more information will be available closer to the time.

i also welcome the proposal that no existing cases will be migrated to the new system as this is def what caused most of the problems with the last system upgrade.

skibadee

But is this ONLY for new cases...OR... will existing cases be subject to the fees too????

mrsspendalot

i!!!!!!!!!!! wrote: »

as far as i know the new proposals are being imposed to encourage people to do their best to make their own arrangements without involving the agency (you would be amazed at the number of new cases which are made after a couple have a falling out and then are closed within a few weeks when all is well again) having to pay £100 to make an application would of course stop these kind of applications which take up so much valuable processing time within the agency and allow staff to chase valid cases and get maintenance for kids who would never see a penny otherwise.

I get the reasons they're doing it, but that doesn't help those of us who already ONLY use the CSA as a last resort because all chances of getting our exes to pay up willingly have failed. Now we are going to have to pay a fee for the pleasure of having an ex who thinks it's funny to go to the ends of the earth to avoid paying

For those cases where the CSA have only been involved following an argument or for spite (like my husbands case with his PWC) then I wholeheartedly agree that a fee will discourage this.

mrsspendalot

skibadee wrote: »

But is this ONLY for new cases...OR... will existing cases be subject to the fees too????

It's going to be for everybody, old and new. All old cases are going to be closed.

jetta_wales

Will the charges be applied to using CSA Direct too?

The up front £100 fee I mean.

mrsspendalot

jetta_wales wrote: »

Will the charges be applied to using CSA Direct too?

The up front £100 fee I mean.

Yes, but there will be no collection fee

jetta_wales

mrsspendalot wrote: »

Yes, but there will be no collection fee

Any idea if there'll be reassessment fee's?

Could this be opening a door for private companies to be set up to offer a CSA service in the future?

mrsspendalot

jetta_wales wrote: »

Any idea if there'll be reassessment fee's?

Could this be opening a door for private companies to be set up to offer a CSA service in the future?

I have no idea - they have just said that assessments will be fixed for 12 months unless income fluctuates by 25%. All income data is coming from HMRC. Perhaps they will do an annual review from the P60 data? I suppose we'll get some proper answers when the reveal the results of the consultation.

As for private companies .... who knows .....