when will CSA payments stop?

Alligg

clearingout wrote: »

so a 'well off' PWC should take responsibility for the upbringing of a child/children he/she had with someone else and expect their partner to help out with that, rather than their ex, the children's father, because he isn't deemed to be quiet as well off?

To put it in some kind of context, I currently earn as much as my ex claims to earn. I receive tax credits etc. so on paper am better off. I work full time. My childcare bill is a little in excess of £200 a week, of which £80 is paid for by tax credits. My ex is assessed to pay £45 a week (he doesn't pay anything but that's another story!). So.....before I feed the children, put clothes on them, give them toys, keep them warm, I am paying £75 a week just to be able to work. My ex's contribution (if he made it) is worth nothing in terms of caring for the children and meeting their most basic of needs. But I am, to all intents and purposes, 'better off'. If I had a partner earning at the same rate as me, tax credits would disappear entirely. I would likely have to rely on a partner to pay a significant portion of my children's basic expenses. My ex wouldn't be expected to contribute anything extra - and I would be technically far, far better off than him. You consider that 'fair' and 'reasonable'?

I'm sorry but I don't buy the 'feel sorry for the children who can't have the holiday' in this kind of scenario. They are children with two sets of parents with two different sets of circumstances. We don't (well, I don't anyway) get annoyed that my next door neighbour's children go on holiday and mine don't because they earn what they earn and they spend it how they choose to spend it and that's the end of it. None of my business. Neither is it my business if my ex has expensive holidays I can't afford or vice versa. That's just life.

His daughter that lives with us misses out on a lot of things because we cannot afford them,if 1 child is living with us and 1 with her mum why should we have to pay so much each month in CSA.surely the fact that his ex and her new partner earn a good salary you would think that the amount we paid under mutual agreement to start with would have been enough yet she is more than happy to see her second child go without just because she got greedy.
Would you honestly take 1 child on holiday leaving your other child at home?????????

My OH has supported both his children from day 1,he is a great dad and even when posted a 6hr round trip away from his daughter drove every other weekend to see her,her mum refused to bring her over the 1 time he could not get due to our car being pinched and written off so he got on a train,changed 4 times and still went to see her.
Not every NRP shirks their responsibilities yet it seems everyone is quick to presume they do.and any partner of a NRP is very much involved one way or another.

Alligg

cte1111 wrote: »

How is claiming the legal amount in child support taking advantage? I guess your partner would have lied about his earnings / gone self employed / otherwise attempted to hide his earnings to avoid paying child support. That's the only possibly conclusion to your assertion that he has to pay because he is in the RAF.

He has supported his children from day 1 and always will because that is the kind of dad he is,his ex took advantage of his job making it look like he was shirking his responsibilities. He was hauled in front of his chief and given the 3rd degree after she told the CSA he had not paid a penny because he was held to ransom by her saying he would not get to see his daughter if he caused problems asking for receipts.
He has 2 daughters of which 1 has always lived with us yet we have to struggle with bills etc to pay £300 in CSA to his other daughter.
As I have said in other posts NRP are always made out to be the bad ones yet they have to put up with a lot just to stay in their childs life,not all NRP try getting out of paying and even when they do the right thing it is not enough but at the end of the day my OH can hold his head high knowing he has always done the right thing.

justontime

shoe*diva79 wrote: »

Sorry to read that. did he not have any life insurance, critical illness policies through work? Did you claim widowed parents allowance?

Wth CSA 1 your income is only taken into consideration to assertain if your husband is liable for full mortgage/rent etc or if his new partner/wife is working then the figures are used to see how much she can contribute towards them.

Otherwise, like a lot of PWC have found, the NRP takes out a whacking huge mortgage so that CM is reduced!

My husband has never tried to avoid his responsibilities in that way. He has always been completely honest in his dealings with CSA. When we married his housing costs were less so he paid more CSA that is fair enough.

As for what my first husband left the answer is not very much at all, but that is completely irrelevant. I still had a mortgage to pay and all the other household expenses to deal with. Yes, I claimed Widowed Parent's Allowance when I was widowed, but that is also irrelevant because my entitlement to Widowed Parents Allowance ceased when I remarried.

shoe*diva79

justontime wrote: »

My husband has never tried to avoid his responsibilities in that way. He has always been completely honest in his dealings with CSA. When we married his housing costs were less so he paid more CSA that is fair enough.

As for what my first husband left the answer is not very much at all, but that is completely irrelevant. I still had a mortgage to pay and all the other household expenses to deal with. Yes, I claimed Widowed Parent's Allowance when I was widowed, but that is also irrelevant because my entitlement to Widowed Parents Allowance ceased when I remarried.

It is relevant though because life insurance, which must be taken out with a mortgage, would have helped pay a lump sum, if not all, the remaining mortgage freeing up money to save for uni etc plus making day to day life easier financially.

shoe*diva79

Alligg wrote: »

He has supported his children from day 1 and always will because that is the kind of dad he is,his ex took advantage of his job making it look like he was shirking his responsibilities. He was hauled in front of his chief and given the 3rd degree after she told the CSA he had not paid a penny because he was held to ransom by her saying he would not get to see his daughter if he caused problems asking for receipts.
He has 2 daughters of which 1 has always lived with us yet we have to struggle with bills etc to pay £300 in CSA to his other daughter.
As I have said in other posts NRP are always made out to be the bad ones yet they have to put up with a lot just to stay in their childs life,not all NRP try getting out of paying and even when they do the right thing it is not enough but at the end of the day my OH can hold his head high knowing he has always done the right thing.

Do you not receive CM for the child that lives with you?

justontime

shoe*diva79 wrote: »

It is relevant though because life insurance, which must be taken out with a mortgage, would have helped pay a lump sum, if not all, the remaining mortgage freeing up money to save for uni etc plus making day to day life easier financially.

He didn't qualify for life insurance (due to a totally unrelated health problem when he was 21) the life insurance on our mortgage was taken out in my name only but the mortgage was in joint names. I don't know what the rules are now, but it certainly wasn't a legal requirement to have life insurance when taking out a mortgage then. I still have the same mortgage by the way.

None of these things change the fact that the way things work can be very unfair (on both sides). My husband was paying CSA1 which was calculated in a way that did not recognise any responsibility to support my children, yet at the same time the uni funding applications deemed that his gross income should be used in the calculation of my daughter's funding needs. The contradiction is clear and it could be resolved very easily by the uni funding/bursary applications recognising that the children that CSA is paid for are dependants of the NRP. I have never suggested that CSA payments should have been reduced to support my children, just that other benefits etc should recognise our true circumstances when calculating what my children should be entitled to.

clearingout

I see your point justontime and appreciate your frustration. My final thought on the issue is where would it stop? We all have children to support, many of us have debts to pay. We voluntarily have children like we voluntarily run up debts. We don't know the future when we're doing it. To take into account all the variables when assessing for student loans, benefits, tax credits etc. seems to be to be opening the door to saying 'well, we have to pay £500 a month on the car loan and £300 a month on the kitchen extension so that should be taken into account 'cos we never see that money'.

Your situation is different, I guess, because you lost your husband and that is a 'void' which is far more than just financial. You're married, your husband took on the responsibility of your children when he married you - rightly or wrongly - you're assessed as a household. I just don't know that we can have a system which deals with 'variables' - the cost would be enormous.

justontime

I appreciate your sensitive comments Clearingout, but when it comes to student funding the situation is not a 'variable' it is an anomaly. Any student from a NRP household is likely to be affected. On one hand the CSA assessment of the NRP doesn't recognise any responsibility to support a student at university; yet the university grant/loan assessment assumes a level of income in the NRP household which isn't actually there.

This could be easily resolved by recognising that the children that CSA is being paid for are dependants of the NRP. It would not cost as much as you imagine, most of the funding is given as a grant which must be paid back with interest, but for those from households where money is tight it may enable them to qualify for a bursary.

Surely it is not unreasonable to expect assessments such as student finance to be based on the actual income available to that household.

his_wife

sorry to but in,,, justontime, i totally get what your saying, about the student funding etc,,,, my children arent entitled to any funding because of our household income, yet me husbands daughter is entitled to maximum funding , however, in my case, they take the whole household income, they dont deduct csa payments, and in his daughters household, they dont count the csa payment, even though its a lot, as its a non accountable income.

His ex, has more money than we have coming in, in ratio,,, we have six people in our house, they have two!!

I think the whole system needs a complete overall, as there are so many holes in it, its transparent.

Im not referring to this because of the csa payments, im on about all children in general loosing out on education here.

PreludeForTimeFeelers

I think the main reason that it would be impractical would be that it's not constant nor can it be relied upon - assessments change all of the time, and NRPs go from being compliant to non-compliant all of the time, so would the proposal be that student loans/grants were reassessed throughout the term?
What about the child of a PWC who should be getting a high amount but whose NRP isn't actually paying anything? If CSA assessments were taken into account that family may not be eligible for financial help even though the NRP also wasn't contributing, resulting in a child's education suffering there too.