Can a father sue child for return of maintenance money?

pigpen

Leakrgn wrote: »

Right. Enough of this nonsense. She DID need the money when she initially went back to him and asked for the maintenance to start again. She later moved to a different place and got a better job and was no longer in desperate need of the money, this is where she should have contacted him and thanked him and said she could now manage and when they stopped talking she expected the money to stop. It didn't.

Anything accepted after she no longer needed it was accepted in breach of their verbal agreement and should have been returned.

It could just be he wants contact with his daughter but doesn't know how else but to use bullying behaviour. He might also be legitimately annoyed that she decided she didn't want contact with him at roughly the same time as she became self sufficient.. Whatever the reason she needs to contact him about this and sort it out. Behaving like a petulant child and sulking about it is not going to serve any purpose but prolong upsets and misunderstandings.

System

Of course the money sent to your sister could always be paid back.

ValHaller

zzzLazyDaisy wrote: »

Just to be clear - he doesn't have grounds to sue for the return of the money (that would involve going to the small claims court or the county court, and suing on the alleged debt, but as the case concerns an alleged over payment of maintenance, the normal CC does not have jurisdiction).

He does have grounds for going back to the original family court that made the order, and asking for the order to be rescinded and the 'overpayment' to be refunded. But since the onus is on him to make an application to the court for the order to be rescinded, the fact that he carried on making the payments after he knew she was no longer at university and took no steps to have the order brought to an end, he is unlikely to get very far (in my view).

In relation to the point I am making, the distinction is not that important. By taking the money, they have given him not just a path back into their lives, but something more akin to tree lined avenue. It is even better that it is back to mother, not to the daughter who took the money.

ValHaller

Leakrgn wrote: »

Right. Enough of this nonsense. She DID need the money when she initially went back to him and asked for the maintenance to start again. She later moved to a different place and got a better job and was no longer in desperate need of the money, and when they stopped talking she expected the money to stop. It didn't.

I will not be accused any longer by people who don't know us of stealing, fraud and of conning. He knew she wasn't at university and paid anyway. Regardless, this was now TWO years ago. You are focusing PURELY on the background information and not on the current situation. I would suggest that if you have nothing new or constructive to add then maybe it would be better for you to invest your time and energy into helping someone else, as there is clearly nothing for you to contribute here.

I wanted to bow out gracefully but you cannot go around labeling people as thieves and con-artists. It is unpleasant and unnecessary.

Hmmm!!! I think a more accurate way of looking at it is that your sister did something with similar drawbacks to a pact with the devil. I'm not sure how you get out of such a pact, but I would say that you and your sister need to look at what happened in that way to find your way out of the situation.

FBaby

It's not you or your actions people have an issue you, but your sister, however, since you are here on her behalf and supporting her, the judgments feel directed to you.

To be fair, however you put it, the fact that she reached a point when she didn't need the money any longer, when the understanding was that he would continue to pay because she needed it, yet continued to receive the money does make her dishonest. Taking something on false pretense IS dishonest. You say that he knew that she wasn't going to back to uni, but did he know, if indeed she stopped all contact at this stage, that she had started a well paid job? If as you've said he has been desperate to stop paying, I very much doubt he would have continued to paid with that knowledge.

He has been used. Whether you and your sister feel that he deserved it is for your own morals to decide.

zzzLazyDaisy

Treevo wrote: »

You seem to be ignoring the fact that he did stop the maintenance when his daughter quit university as per the order.

He then started giving her money again because she told him that she needed it (though the OP admits that this was a lie) on the condition that she return to university. She didn't return and then she cut off all contact with him, while still taking his money. It's only now that he's trying to discover if he's been conned by his own daughter that the family are worried.

It's clear that they (the mother and daughters) knew they were stealing as they give repeated justifications as to why they fraudulently took this money.

That is not how the OP has presented the facts, but let's say you are right.

YOU seem to be ignoring the fact that the father never applied to have the order rescinded, and then recommenced payments under the order, in the full knowledge that the daughter was no longer in full time education.

But lets just say for a moment that this was a completely separate arrangement with no relationship to the maintenance order at all. With no record of the agreement, and with evidence that the father commenced payments in the full knowledge that the daughter was not attending Uni at that point, it is highly likely that a court would decide that, on the balance of probability, the payments were intended to be a gift.

Apart from anything else, the father is a high earner and able to take legal advice, so you'd think he would have had a written agreement drawn up if he wanted it to be completely separate from the court order for maintenance, and particularly if he wished to attach terms to the payments.

ValHaller

zzzLazyDaisy wrote: »

YOU seem to be ignoring the fact that the father never applied to have the order rescinded, and then recommenced payments under the order, in the full knowledge that the daughter was no longer in full time education.

You know and we all know that he did this in full knowledge that the daughter was no longer in full time education. because OP told us.

But if he is alleging he was scammed, he just has to say to the court that the daughters and mother were colluding to scam him and the court might really have a job to balance the probabilities. OP might come across as a somewhat motivated witness ....

In this case, I doubt father is interested in winning or losing, so much as having an opportunity to cause fear and havoc.

zzzLazyDaisy

ValHaller wrote: »

In this case, I doubt father is interested in winning or losing, so much as having an opportunity to cause fear and havoc.

Absolutely. I don't doubt that for one moment.

unschooler

I'm pretty horrified at this thread. To the op, I suspect you and I have similar traumatic tales to tell about our childhoods and the people having a go have no clue. Please ignore them. You deserve understanding, not this.