CSA: criminal offences

Robin-i'-the-Hood

Hello everyone. Quick question: is it a CRIMINAL offence not to tell the CSA of your new address within seven days of moving to a new property. Secondly, is it also a CRIMINAL offence to mislead the Agency, or fail to tell them of your circumstances, either by lying or withholding information?
The CSA say its an offence but was wondering if they are offences treated the same as motoring 'offences' which are not necessarily criminal.
Hope someone can set me straight.

(I'm not doing these things I should hurriedly point out, ex being elusive but have tracked her down...Poirot has nothing on me!)

DUTR

Not sure if it's criminal as such, I don't recall of anyone getting prosecuted or fined for it.
Where the problem can occur is that if the CSA contact somebody and they claim they were never informed, rightfully the csa can only contact at the last known address.

HoneyNutLoop

It is a criminal offence for someone who is responsible for paying maintenance to fail to tell the CSA of a change of address within 7 days. It's stated on most of their letters now. Don't know if anyone has been prosecuted for the offence (FOI request would tell you if you were particularly interested) but if prosecuted and found guilty it attracts a fine and, as it is a criminal offence, a criminal record I believe.

It is also a criminal offence for someone to fail to provide info when asked to do so by the CSA, or to knowingly provide false info. Same as above re: not knowing how many people the CSA actually try to prosecute, and the consequences if found guilty are the same as the above.

Bluemeanie_2

P.S. Motoring offences are criminal offences. Speeding, running a red light, failing to stop at the scene of an accident etc.

The only ones that aren't are decriminalised parking offences. A few places like Kettering, still operate under the old sytem and have an old skool police traffic warden.

kingfisherblue

My ex didn't tell the CSA when he moved. He did receive the letters, as the address they were sent to was his parents, and they passed them on (and yes, I do believe they did - they are good people, very upright).

He also failed to tell them when he was working. He avoided paying maintenance for over four years.

The CSA caught up with him and took him to court. I don't know what the charges were, but not long afterwards, I started to receive payments. At first, they were from his JSA, but when one payment didn't arrive and I asked the CSA why, they discovered thaty he was working and had applied for WTC. Within a couple of months, a DEO was in place.