CSA arrears to be paid in 2 years

topcat1974

My husband changed jobs and as a consquence it took the CSA 6 months to work out his new payments, which then left him in arrears of nearly 5,000. He has since been paying his monthly payments and 25 pounds per month towards his arrears.

Yesterday we got a letter saying these arrears payments were going up to 158 pounds a month, an amount we just cannot afford, because the government want all arrears paid in 2 years (no doubt to cover the money not being paid by those who the government cannot track down)

Is anyone else in this situation? Is there anyway we can fight these charges?

He is on the old system of CSA payments, meaning he is already paying 30% of his net monthly wage for one child, compared to those on the new system who pay just 15% for one child.

How can these two systems be fair??

misspoppy

I can't give you any advice to you but i can agree that this sums up the whole disaster that is the CSA, maybe CAB can help or your MP, it doesn't seem very fair at all.

Good luck

skintasusual

my sister is having similar problems,

She just told them to send it to the Debt collection agency. They are much easier to deal with than the CSA!

Tootsie_Roll

Whilst I agree that the CSA are useless and that the system seems to fail almost everyone concerned; I disagree very strongly with your comment highlighted below. The amount will be to cover what your husband didn't pay over the 6 months he should have been making payment for his own children.

topcat1974 wrote: »

an amount we just cannot afford, because the government want all arrears paid in 2 years (no doubt to cover the money not being paid by those who the government cannot track down)

JET34

My sons father used to pay though the CSA but as he changed jobs/moved home they would take ages to sort out payment changes so he ended up owing me quite a bit, so much so he was thinking of leaving his job and signing on.
So in the end I contacted the CSA and told them I didn't want them collecting payment's anymore it did mean I lost out on about £700+ pound's but in the end my son gained by having a non stressed out dad.

topcat1974

Tootsie_Roll wrote: »

Whilst I agree that the CSA are useless and that the system seems to fail almost everyone concerned; I disagree very strongly with your comment highlighted below. The amount will be to cover what your husband didn't pay over the 6 months he should have been making payment for his own children.

I agree my husband did not make payments during those 6 months, but the monthly amount increased hugely due to a rise in wages for the new job, an amount we had no way of knowing until the CSA contacted us 6 months later, so we had been putting by an amount to pay the maintenence whilst the CSA assessed it, however it was nowhere enough.
My comment was not meant to insinuate that we are not prepared to pay the arrears, it was meant that as my Husband is someone who pays his maintenence it is easy for the government to target him to pay his arrears to make up a deficit from those who pay no money at all. We are quite willing to pay the arrears, however on top of the monthly amount we pay at the moment there is no way we can afford to repay those arrears within 2 years. The CSA set the amount we used to pay to cover the arrears at 25 pounds which we could manage, they have now upped that to 158 pounds, which we can simply not afford and are not prepared to comprimise or negoiate at all.

Can you tell me that the cost to keep one child is nearly 600 pounds a month, which is what we will have to pay, that is twice as much as our mortgage a month!

Tootsie_Roll

topcat1974 wrote: »

I agree my husband did not make payments during those 6 months, but the monthly amount increased hugely due to a rise in wages for the new job, an amount we had no way of knowing until the CSA contacted us 6 months later, so we had been putting by an amount to pay the maintenence whilst the CSA assessed it, however it was nowhere enough.

So was the amount you put aside equal to or greater than the amount he had previously paid ? Also during that time, regardless of the fact you didn't know what the actual amount to be paid was, why didn't you continue to pay something anyway - your liability would be less now.

topcat1974 wrote: »

My comment was not meant to insinuate that we are not prepared to pay the arrears, it was meant that as my Husband is someone who pays his maintenence it is easy for the government to target him to pay his arrears to make up a deficit from those who pay no money at all.

This is complete rubbish - your husbands payments to not subsidise other lone parents - all the money will go towards his child.

topcat1974 wrote: »

Can you tell me that the cost to keep one child is nearly 600 pounds a month, which is what we will have to pay, that is twice as much as our mortgage a month!

Completely irrelevant - it's based on your husbands income but might not be entirely fair.

mrsspendalot

topcat1974 wrote: »

Can you tell me that the cost to keep one child is nearly 600 pounds a month, which is what we will have to pay, that is twice as much as our mortgage a month!

I don't think the CSA intends to make the amount reflective of the cost of bringing up a child, otherwise everyone would be expected to pay the same surely.

having said that, £600 is a lot of money so I can see why you are so frustrated

hesjane

I do agree CSA are useless - my own experience with them bears witness to that. I was on benefits for only a few months and then worked, but because of that short period CSA got involved. My husband always paid me and paid over and above what CSA eventually demanded he pay. They took so long to sort everything out that he finally got a bill for over £9k. I wrote and told them that he had paid me and I had declared it against the few months benefits I had received. I told them he did not owe it, he told them he did not owe it...and we ended up getting a solicitor to write to them and in the end the only way they would drop it was if I would write a letter stating that I no longer wished to pursue the arrears from my husband! A letter stating he had paid me it already was obviously not good enough.

But....I agree with Tootise Roll - how much your DH pays is based on his income and not what you feel it costs to keep a child. Would you expect Jude Law for example to pay the same amount in CSA for his child as your DH does?

You say that CSA took 6 months to work out the figures which left over £5000 arrears - but at 'nearly 600 pounds a month' - six months is less than £3,600 so he must have missed some payments somewhere else then.

I know it's irritating for your DH to have make the increased payments, but during the period he was waiting for CSA to work out the payments if he had put aside a reasonable estimate he could have paid it all at once and then wouldn't be in this situation. He obviously had several months at one point with no payments and chose not to put the money aside and he must have realised that an increased salary would have meant an increased commitment to CSA. I'm not knocking him for that - it's easily done but
he obviously does owe this money and two years to pay it seems reasonable to me.

N71

""I do agree CSA are useless - my own experience with them bears witness to that. I was on benefits for only a few months and then worked, but because of that short period CSA got involved."""

THE GOVERNMENT IS USELESS - CSA HAS A LOT OF STAFF WHO ARE NOT USELESS, AND ARE TRYING THERE BEST WITH THE TOOLS AVAILABLE!!

hesjane

N71 wrote: »

""I do agree CSA are useless - my own experience with them bears witness to that. I was on benefits for only a few months and then worked, but because of that short period CSA got involved."""

THE GOVERNMENT IS USELESS - CSA HAS A LOT OF STAFF WHO ARE NOT USELESS, AND ARE TRYING THERE BEST WITH THE TOOLS AVAILABLE!!

Apologies - I totally agree with you. I would not want to be in a CSA job for anything. What I meant was the CSA system is useless and unworkable - not the people that work for them.