Ex self employed and departure - help!

Carrera74

I involved the CSA a couple of years ago as I was sick of asking for money towards our son's uniforms, trips etc and him laughing in my face one evening as I had no money to buy school pants.

My ex is self employed and I have just received the reassessment and it says that he only has £140 a week to live off after tax etc so his payments have gone to £15 a week from £10. I have never received a penny off him since we split (nearly 5 years ago) or when we were together. I wasn’t happy as I know that when he first started working for himself that he was bringing home a week what I was earning a month and I worked fulltime! The CSA said they could only take into account what he declares to the Inland Revenue but when I said he lives beyond his means – 200K detached house which is like a show home, nice car, holidays etc etc they said they would send me a departures form to fill out. He also has 2 lads that work for him too. I know I wouldn’t pay a wage to anyone if I was only bringing home a small amount.

Can anyone advise what I can put on this form and what sort of evidence I can use?

debbiVwoolwich

Hi there,
My ex is also an self employed builder he advised the CSA in 2003 that he was no longer working the CSA said oh ok dont pay anything ! and gave a nil assesment , I appealed against the decision (not a departure) it went on till 2006, when I finally won at the appeal hearing in 2006,and he was told that the tribunal belived him to be working and earning in excess of £25,000 per year he was then reasssed as having to pay £84 per week, he appealed against the decision the next day and won an appeal on the grounds that he wasnt there (he also didnt make the previous 3 hearings !!) because he said he did not get the date and time through the post.!!,he also phoned the CSA and asked for another reassement on the grounds that he was no longer working (!) and once again the CSA have reassessed him as a nil assesment , even thought the appeal is still going through, ... I have a final hearing on the 2nd of May, I would advise an appeal, it has been drawn out but this is because he does not respond to their requests for items, and they have asked for bank statements, his and hers to show they are living on her earnings alone, their mortgage appilcation (they brought a 340,000 house) and lots of other information that the CSA dont bother about, the tribunal service have been very good and basically told him to stop mucking about and give them the information or to quote them "inferance will be drawn". I now have arrears of £12,000 due and he has actually started paying £500 per month since january because Im sure he knows that next month when its finally over and he will have to cough up the 12,000 he thinks paying 500.00 now will stop action for the whole amount to be recovered in one hit.
good luck with your action !!
debbi

Carrera74

Can anyone advise if I'm better to appeal or fill in the departure?

I feel like I'm hitting my head against a brick wall with this but don't want to give the ex the satisfaction of me giving up.

kelloggs36

Fill out a Departures form as the appeal can only look at the info they have and if they have accepted the Inland Revenue figures that is all they can look at again. When you complete a Departures form I can almost guarantee you will not get it granted. In order to get this, you will have to APPEAL AGAINST THE REFUSAL TO ALLOW A DEPARTURE. It is here that you will get to provide the additional information although it will be on the form, you can go into more detail.

When you appeal against the departure, you will get all the info that he provided to the CSA in the papers - a copy of the MEF and the income details used in the assessment. The MEF should have the housing costs on it too, so you can query why they are so high if he claims not to be earning much money.

Evidence required: you can go direct to the Land Registry and get details of how much he paid for the house and whether the house is in joint or single names. If in his name only it will strenghthen your case as he will have had to secure the mortgage on his sole income. You can then query how he secured such a large mortgage on such a paltry income - the Tribuanal can too and can direct him to supply evidence of his mortgage application to prove what income he declared when he applied for the mortgage. You can give full details of what was happening whilst you were living together - whilst it is not evidence of what is happening now, you can argue that there is a construction industry boom and therefore as an established builder, the chances of his income dropping in recent times are very small. Have you got any copies of old accounts? If he moved house to buy a new one, you can also get details from the Land Registry of how much that house was sold for to prove a low deposit etc.
Get copies of job applications of jobs that he does to show the going rate of pay for that line of work - get lots and lots of them. The jobcentre is a good place to start, you can print them off. Estimate from his house size the cost of day to day living which proves that he cannot live on what he claims to be. eg. If his housing costs are deducted from his income it leaves him with x to live on. Cost in food, petrol, council tax, gas, electricity, holidays (if your kids got postcards from him, use these as evidence that he has been on holiday) etc.

The main problem you may face is that he may claim that his new partner pays for everything, but if he claims she isn't working, then this will go in your favour.

If she is working, they will (or should) automatically consider attributinig housing costs against her, thus freeing up income from him to be assessed.

kelloggs36

I am assuming that he has a partner by the way - if he doesn't then there isn't a problem with this.

Carrera74

Wow thank you very much!

He does have a partner but she is self employed too and no doubt only telling the IR she's earning the bare minimum too.

I'll fill the departure in over the weekend and contact the Land Registry. He did move from one house to another and when it went up for sale the price he was asking was nearly 60K more than he bought if for but then there is still at least 100K difference between that and his new house so he would have to be earning more than he is claiming to be able to get a mortgage. The original mortgage was a self cert one so he may have shot himself in the foot there!

His OH's ex husband pays maintenance so she'll probably say that's what pays the bills.

Anyway I'll get on with the departure. Again, many thanks

kelloggs36

Good luck - you need to pre-empt the sorts of answers that he is likely to give to questions on how he is managing on such a low income and cover them with evidence to prove him wrong if you can. If he claims to live on credit cards, ask the Tribunal to ask him to provide evidence of this by way of his credit card bills for the last year. Ask them to ask him to provide his household bills too to prove what he is saying.