CSA enforcement of variation

sammacphee

Hi, I wondered if anyone had any fresh thinking on this as at the moment, I feel very overwhelmed by the whole issue.
After 17years together my ex-partner left me and our four children. After the first three months, he decided not to pay child support regularly at all, saying he was unable to land a job (he's a chartered civil engineer whom I supported through both college and University) needed to move house, and had various other expenses and commitments which precluded the payment of child maintenance. (I work, and he quite rightly assumed that I could manage to get by on one salary, which I can if I'm thrifty!) I spent a good couple of years giving him time to sort his life out, etc, while supporting our children myself. However, I discovered that I had been hoodwinked and that he had actually been lying about, well, pretty much everything, and that I had been very stupid, let our kids down, and basically been used. He has a super job, earns over £1000 per week, and had strung muggins here along when I thought I was being supportive.
I enlisted the help of the CSA, whereupon he vanished. When he turned up again, he was being paid through a payroll agency, as a director of his own "company" - a perfectly legal way for contractors to avoid paying excess tax. He draws a wage of £200 per week from his company and can adjust the rest of his income however he wants it, the balance being by dividend.
He was assessed as only having to pay child support on the "minimum wage" he receives, and the dividend was not taken into account. (this equals about £5 per week per child) He still refused to pay, and was served with a deductions of earnings order. Because of the amount he had been assessed as, and because of his prior history the CSA knew it was likely that he did have other income, I was advised to appeal the decision, and was told that while it would be turned down, this would open the door to the tribunal service, which I attended in January. They found for the children, and allowed a variation in the amount of child support to a more realistic level.
The accountant at the tribunal discussed the various possibilities by which my ex may try not to pay, and one of these possibilities was that even if they made a decision, the payroll company would refuse to pay it because of something called "protection of earnings" The representative of the CSA said that this would not be the case, and that the decision of the tribunal came first and that the payroll company would be obliged to pay the children their maintenance first.
Well, this was the month that the decision of the tribunal was supposed to come into force. I telephoned the CSA only to be told the case had gone to Enforcement, as the payroll company were claiming that they could only pay the previous amount because the balance was protected earnings. The chap from the CSA says there is other money there, but they cannon assess it. My response to this was to quote Regulation 19 1a of the Child support variations regulations 2000 which states that if the pwc is a company director and can control the amount of income he receives from his company, then the CSA can take this into account.
I'm not sure what else to do. I had thought (and obviously so did the tribunal) that this was a line drawn under this whole sorry episode and that the children would perhaps get slightly more money than I myself can afford to budget for them. It has taken nearly six years to get to this point, and the helpfulness (and otherwise) of the CSA is another story entirely.
I'm desperately trying to do the best for these children, and give them the best possible start in life, and I am doing quite well, but I feel I would be letting them down entirely if I were to give this up now.
Has anyone any fresh ideas that I could follow up please?

kelloggs36

Right, does your ex own a house or flat? If so, then they can get a liability order on the basis that he is refusing to pay, and then get a charging order on the property. Next, do you know which bank he uses? The CSA criminal compliance team have powers to ask banks to provide details of NRPs' bank details and then they can apply for a third party debt order (garnishee order where they can sieze the amount in the bank).

The protection of earnings which you are referring to is where the liability for maintenance leaves the parent with below a legal amount of his wages - they have to be left with 60% of his wages after the maintenance, and as he is paying himself a low wage this is what has happened. Later, I shall have a quick look at the enforcement guide but it has gone to the right place. It looks like they will need to take alternative action. Check out the property situation first.

janiegs

Kellogs is right. If they can't access his income via a deductions of earnings order, then legal enforcement is the way forward. Sadly it takes for ever.

kelloggs36

Janiegs - which office are you based? I used to be in Bromley Face to Face (now closed!!) so I have no idea what I shall do come next September when I am supposed to go back, although I spoke to my case officer (a Grade 7) who said that I shouldn't have any problems going into Criminal Compliance if I want to and work from home a lot which is what I did when I was a F2F officer. That would be very good for me! I am IUC trained but I have to do it all again as it was such a long time ago, but I love getting the bad guys!

sammacphee

Thank you for your replies about this.


Unfortunately he does not have a house of his own, he rents, he does not have a driving license- he takes taxis- and any surplus income he keeps under the bed. What I do hope is that the enforcement people have the power to ask for specific information from banks etc. or the children are always going to be stuck at whatever I can give them.

The other thing I did was telephone the payroll company to ask "in theory" rather than as a specific case, how it would come about that they were saying to the CSA that there was only this amount of income. The chap I spoke to said that this was impossible, and that the CSA must have asked regarding wages. If they had asked in a different way, for example, for total income then they would have been obliged to disclose this income. When I spoke to the CSA officer I was told that they could only ask for wage slips- and his only shows the basic amount he takes as a wage and not the dividend. Yet why would they have not looked into the dividend amount as a variation, particularly as they had caught him doing the same thing through a different payroll company, and been given the complete amount of information about it before.

I'm starting to believe that the enforcement department is where it should be going, but I'm very confused about why that the CSA officer at the tribunal should have said that

A. The children's money should be paid out of income before any dividend was calculated as the result of the tribunal came before everything else,
B That he was quite specific that there was no such thing as protected income in this case.

It was definitely on the basis of his statements to that effect that the tribunal made their decision, rather than looking at another solution.

The children and I were truly under the impression that the CSA now had this in hand completely, and the only way now that anything could go wrong would be if he moved payroll companies, and in the words of the accountant at the tribunal, there are a limited number of companies in the UK, so he would have to face up to his obligations at some point.


It all gets so confusing!

kelloggs36

Dividends are specifically excluded when calculating an NRP's income under the new rules.

sammacphee

kelloggs36 wrote: »

Dividends are specifically excluded when calculating an NRP's income under the new rules.

Hi Kelloggs36

Thank you for your reply.

One of the reasons I am confused about this is that when I was sent out a booklet about variations which is dated at the back 2004, there is a bit clipped into it which says "From 06/06/05 this ground was extended to allow a variation to be given to take into account income received by the non-resident parent who has the ability to control the amount of income he receives from a business or company. This applies to income received from that business or company which is outside of net weekly income and which is more than £100 per week, eg dividend income of a company director.
Regulation 19 (1A) of the Child Support Variations Regulations 2000

Would this not apply in these circumstances?

Thank you once again

kelloggs36

It looks like it - I hope so as this would be so easy to do to avoid the CSA liability.

pugsley29

thanks for this info

stevectaylor

Dividends are taken into account. Obtain a copy of the company accounts for £1 which will identify the dividends payable and present these to the CSA. But any assets invested in a business are not taken into account.

kelloggs36

Under CS1 dividends were always counted as income so a Variation would not have been required, unless it were for either lifestyle inconsistent or deprivation of income (eg putting partner on the books and paying them instead of paying themselves in order to reduce assessment). under CS2 however, dividends are not counted as income except in the case of a Variation so you need to apply for this under the grounds that the NRP has income of more than £100 per week. They will look at all the evidence and then you have the right of appeal if it is rejected.