csa grrrrrr

clearingout

his_wife wrote: »

clearing out, i am not a new partner we have been together a number of years, i do not have any quibble whatsoever, with my partner supporting his child, i have never had a go on him over it, she is his flesh and blood of course he should support her. However, i dont agree with the 19 thing. For what its worth he agrees with me. If she was in a third year full time course, if she had any intention of doing something with this college course, work wise, i would do my upmost to go the extra mile. She , by her own admisssion is doing it because her mum has said she will giver x amount a week for doing so!!

I no longer work 30 hours a wk, i have had to change jobs, however, i do the amount of hours i can get, its not that i dont want to do more , no more are available to me. As i work silly shifts, early mornings, late nights, get rota a wk at a time, i am unable to top up my hours with a second job.

Sorry i sounded condescending to pwc who receive nothing, however, i know my ex husband works more and earns more than what he declares. Hence, why i said only.


This is not tit for tat, my husband is a good man and of course i appreciate him, however, i would be financially be better of as a single parent. Harsh, but true.


Fbaby, if you read further back, we have been battling not to go bankrupt for the past five years, through debts my husband ran up previous to me coming on the scene. No its not his daughters fault we have these debts, nor is it the csa fault either. However, after, counting down till the csa stopped so we could actually make headway with these debts, then find theres another year to pay, was quite gut wrenching.

Yes we were going to give his daughter some of this money a month to help her with college, and throw the rest at debts to eventually give us some quality of a better life!!

I don't mean this personally but this is yet another example of the double standards that generally exist within our society. A woman who is married/living with someone is fine to work a 30 hour week with older children (which I think yours are?) - no one has picked up on this. If you were a single parent, you would have been shouted down many posts ago and told to get off your backside and work fulltime if you wanted more money.

You would be better off as a single parent? I know benefits and tax credits are generous but I doubt very much you would have more than the equivalent of £60k coming in, and then your salary on top of that, even if you included housing benefit in that (although that may well depend on where you live). And of course, you wouldn't have the benefit of your relationship and the emotional support that goes with that. If you are badly off now it is as direct result of the debt your husband brought to your relationship which you cannot blame the CSA and the Law for, can you?! I know money is important and the lack of it is a major stress on relationships but I find the 'I'd be better off as a single parent' argument hilarious in this regard. No, you wouldn't.

You probably should receive more child maintenance - but that's the case for many of us. I don't receive any. I am not alone in that. Unfortunately I don't receive any because my ex and I fall down the self employment gap. I have no expectation that any new partner of mine shouldn't support his children in order to help me out with mine because of this however. I struggle to see why anyone considers this acceptable.

Anyway, it seems we have done this to death! I agree to disagree and leave it at that!

his_wife

Clearing out, yes we shall agree to disagree, my initial opening post was that i didnt agree with the csa being raised to 20, my incomings and outgoings were totally irrelevant to this, as i still have the same debts, money worries irrelevant to the age thing!!

Yes, my children are teenagers. If i could get full time hours i would work them. As much as my husband is an high earner, due to his life prior to me, i do not see any of that money.

I have a very limited income to live on, so yes, i would be better off as a single parent, than the amount of money I actually run my household on. For arguments sake, my husband pays me a nominal sum in housekeeping money, as that is all he has available at this moment in time. I have in my past, been a single parent, and beleive me i did receive more money.

Yes , he gives me emotional support, he also gives me lots of stress, too, but i suppose that goes hand in hand.

My argument has never ever been about him supporting his daughter, my argument has been about the raise in age.

wayne0

FBaby wrote: »

Saying that, we just need to read wayne posts to see how clueless he is about the true cost of a child (a £10 pair of shoes expected to last how long, a year????).

lol...

Did you actually read the thread? AGAIN... you state about lifestyle choices...

we are not on about children here. by any definition in "law" if your over 18, your an adult - this is with the exception of Child Support Law...

I did not say you have to buy just X... but like i said you dont buy EVERYTHING every damn day of the week, like most people lead you to believe...

HELL: the last time i bought myself general clothes was about 4 years ago...

clothes last longer than some might lead you to expect...

an if your neext point is "well my son wants a pair of nike' trainers... or w/e... isnt that nice... because what about the fact that other kids have to make do with a 3 quid pair of trainers form george because the parents cant afford to cloth them in nice nike trainers because they have to provide most of their wages and benefits that they get for their children! to the "PWC" of the ADULT child.

FBaby

The thing is wayne, I started to feel broody in my late teens, but I also knew even then that I wanted to be able to provide to my kids more than the basics in life, so decided to try to get a career before I had children. I also knew that if I had more children, it was likely the first ones would have to do with less (not expecting a life on benefits), so even though my heart would have told me to continue to have more children, i decided not to.

We are back to the same place. you CHOSE to have more children despite your financial situation not allowing to give them more than the basics. Nothing wrong with that choice because each values things differently (ie. a bigger family over a certain lifestyle), but don't moan that you can't have both and that is because of having to support your first child. My partner had to make that choice too, we took the other one. That means compromising on having a child together which we would have liked, but we couldn't afford to do so without significant financial impact on our lives and we decided that we should be grateful for what we already have. If someone could have assured me that we could have remained financially comfortable and enjoyed a child together, I wouldn't have thought twice...

FBaby

his_wife wrote: »

My argument has never ever been about him supporting his daughter, my argument has been about the raise in age.

But you have also posted a number of times that you think it isn't fair your SD gets to do things that your own kids can't, and that's prompted personal questions.

I do genuinely sympathise with this change in the rules changing at the last minute with little warning. It doesn't matter if you are struggling financially or thought you would finally be able to enjoy a more comfortable lifestyle, to have your plans (which might have kept you positive) slashed is very disheartening. My comments have never been in relation to this but to the fact that you have extended your annoyance to expressing some feeling of unfairness of the csa in relation to your own children and this is where I don't agree with you because as it's been pointed before, if your daughter can't go to college or enjoy the same luxuries than you sd, it is clearly because of you and her father can't afford it (however justified the reasons are) rather than the fact that your partner has to continue to pay maintenance.

spiritsfree

his_wife wrote: »

Yes, my children are teenagers. If i could get full time hours i would work them. As much as my husband is an high earner, due to his life prior to me, i do not see any of that money.

Maybe that is the real problem...which I honestly don`t understand ?

Maybe we have different philosophies on life, however to me life is a partnership if you are married or living with someone and all income is shared and not "That`s his and this is mine".

I do stand to be corrected in order to understand.

I am in agreement that the CSA, and the law regarding this, needs a radical reform.

ankspon

Get a grip,they are not children at 20,they should be supporting themselves,it's because the Government doesn't want to pay any more benefits to the supposed children,

FBaby

ankspon wrote: »

it's because the Government doesn't want to pay any more benefits to the supposed children

and that is the right decision. Why should it be tax payers supporting students rather than their own parents? There is no definition of when a child becomes an adult financially, the age itself is irrelevant, it is about the time it is acceptable that one should start supporting themselves. When a child is still at school studying full-time, it is right that they can't work to support themselves fully. If it is then a case of parents vs tax payers, then yes, it should be the parents, both parents.

I do agree though that 'studying' should be studying, ie. in terms of hours in lessons + hours of home study that should come to a total of at least 30 hours, if not 40.

FBaby

spiritsfree wrote: »

Maybe we have different philosophies on life, however to me life is a partnership if you are married or living with someone and all income is shared and not "That`s his and this is mine".

I agree with this, but I would put before this 'responsibility towards one's child should always come before that of a partner, especially when that partner can support themselves'.

**Patty**

FBaby wrote: »

and that is the right decision. Why should it be tax payers supporting students rather than their own parents? There is no definition of when a child becomes an adult financially, the age itself is irrelevant, it is about the time it is acceptable that one should start supporting themselves. When a child is still at school studying full-time, it is right that they can't work to support themselves fully. If it is then a case of parents vs tax payers, then yes, it should be the parents, both parents.

I do agree though that 'studying' should be studying, ie. in terms of hours in lessons + hours of home study that should come to a total of at least 30 hours, if not 40.

It seems that one of the bones of contention would be this issue of *full-time but not-full-time* study. A 12 hour a week college course to me, is not full-time.
If 1 HMG dept can class 30hours a week as full time (as HMRC do) then why is it others (CSA) don't? However, thats a political issue & not for here.
When it comes to the point that a child of 18/19 is doing 12 hours at college but yet working 20+ *part-time*........then any reasonable person would question the eligibility for Child Maintenance surely? I don't object to any of our children gaining qualifications that would see them do better in life.....but on 12 hours a week? That's not enough to enable them to do so!


As an aside, regarding the supporting of children......I would guess (purely because i don't think its in the thread) that His Wife's Husband has an Old Rules case. It's unreasonable to ask that her wages alone should support her children when half of them are taken into account for her husband's assessment.