Help with closing a CSA case and switching to a private arrangement.

nicki_2

My ex and I are sick of the mistakes that keep happening when it comes to him paying maintenance for our daughter. When we split up we went through the CSA as I started claiming income support and at that time his payments to me meant a reduction in my benefits and we were told it was the only way we were allowed to do it.

Fast forward to now, almost 5 years later, I'm self-employed, and we are dealing with yet another mistake. He works for his local council and their payroll department keeps making errors when making their deductions either from his wages, or at the point of making the payments to the CSA. The payments take anywhere from 6 days up to 2 months to come through from when he's paid depending on whether things go smoothly or there's another error. I do accept that according to the CSA's own information that the "company has until the 19th of the following month to pay us" but that means its nearly a month since Ex was paid and it leaves me struggling, and 'robbing Peter to pay Paul'.

We've both had enough of this and after toying with the idea for quite a while, we want to make a "family agreement" instead so that we can do our best for our daughter by knowing what money is coming in/out and when! We get on well and would have it all in writing and payments would be direct from his bank to mine so there is a "paper trail" so I'm not worried about actually making it. We're planning on discussing this in more detail at the weekend but I can't foresee any problems.

What I am bothered about is closing the case with the CSA. I can't seem to find any information about how to go about it. Last thing I want is for them to start chasing Ex for non-payment or to continue taking the money from his wages when he'd be paying me direct. Especially as it could affect his ability to afford to see our daughter every week like he does now.

Can anyone point me in the right direction as to what to do please?

Marisco

I can't help with your problem, but I must say it makes a refreshing change to see two parents who are reasonable and want to do the best for their child. It (almost ) restores your faith in human nature to see a NRP who is willing and a PWC who is not grabbing all they can. :T And the sooner you bin the CSA the better, good luck.

msgigglewick

I believe you phone them up say you wish to close the case and that your ex will be paying you direct. they will send you a form to fill out and close the case... i say close. it will be left hanging if you ever want to go back to them.... which is what happened to us but thats a whole other story lol. Takes about 2 weeks i seem to recall.

RAS

If the CSA is coming from his wages, I assume he is paying a DEO?
If that is the case, he probably has arrears?

Think it is possible that the CSa would chase arrears via the DEO even if he was paying current maintenance direct to you. Check it out?

Might be safer to wait until the arrears are sorted out?

duchy

I closed a case with CSA for similar reasons. Ex husband got a new girlfriend who decided to advise him badly and he stopped paying ..... I went straight to CSA rather than get involved in her daft games -soon after she was history and ex returned to his normal self and apologized. We decided to leave it with CSA anyway but a year later they still hadn't managed to take a single payment from him as they'd set the DD up wrong and were incapable of rectifying the mistake ....Every month the money would go out of his account and 24 hours later it'd be back as a rejected payment. CSA had the nerve to tell me he was just another Dad who isn't paying (fortunately I'd seen his bank statements and knew better - but I know had I not known better it would have caused big problems in our efforts to stay as amicable as possible .....Nice one CSA !)

I had to sign something effectively writing off the "arrears" (which weren't arrears as he'd paid me each month after the DD bounced back -something else CSA couldn't document correctly) for the CSA and we reverted to a private arrangement.

nicki_2

RAS wrote: »

If the CSA is coming from his wages, I assume he is paying a DEO?
If that is the case, he probably has arrears?

Think it is possible that the CSa would chase arrears via the DEO even if he was paying current maintenance direct to you. Check it out?

Might be safer to wait until the arrears are sorted out?

There's no arrears at all. It was just the way it was set up when the case was opened as it made sense for the money to be taken from his wages before he got them.

PreludeForTimeFeelers

It's not a difficult thing to do, to close a case, you literally just phone up and say that you would like to close the case. It's best to do this near when a deduction has came from his wage, the CSA can then contact his employer to cancel the DEO.

They will ask if you want the case to remain open but set to maintenance direct - an advantage of that would be reduced set-up time if direct payments stopped, but if you are confident that this wouldn't happen then all you need to do is tell them that you want the case fully closed. They will work out how much any final payment will be.

You can then phone them and tell them that you have received this amount directly, that way the case can fully close, rather than be marked as withdrawn with debt suspended.

RAS

nicki wrote: »

There's no arrears at all. It was just the way it was set up when the case was opened as it made sense for the money to be taken from his wages before he got them.

In that case, it would be easy to sort out.