Non Resident parent needing advice please..

foyers

Very many thanks to all of you for taking the time to offer advice.
Posts 2,6,8,and 11 especially give much food for thought and make things a lot clearer.

FBaby

He needs to take everything into consideration and decide whether it will really benefit him long term to go to the csa.

Firstly, can he afford to continue to pay £200. Is he likely to look for/get a job that will pay more. He needs to remember that if he gets to pay less now, he could end up paying more than what she might agree to when his income increases.

How would reducing the payment impact on her and her ability to support their child? Is she working, part-time, FT, relying on benefits etc...

Let's assume two positions:
1- Your son only works a few hours and isn't bothered to get more hours. She knows that. On the other hand, she works full-time, pays for morning/after school club, but gets little tax credits help. Most of the maintenance he pays help with the cost of the clubs so she can work (or say study). He is living with you and paying no bills so he can afford to pay her £200. Reducing that amount will have a big financial impact for her and she is likely to find it hard, hence growing resentful or your son and not wanting in return to make anything easy for your son.

Scenario 2: She isn't working and relying on benefits. She has two other children and getting maintenance for them from their father. Your son is working as much as he can, but also studying and is paying towards his accommodation so he has very little left in the end of the month. He has to come and get his daughter for his visits and he is now struggling to afford the costs of these visits or to feed his child properly when she comes and stay with him.

You have two totally different scenarios that warrants a different approach to what is best for the child. He needs to remember that this is not about getting back at the ex, making a point, or even about what is morally right or wrong, ultimately, it is and always will be what is best for the child. Most of the time, it involves wanting to scream over the top of the roof because of the unfairness of the system, but still doing it because it means raising a healthy and happy child.

Cally_Smart

One thing to remember is when the nrp fills out & returns the MEF(maintenance enquiry form) is when the CSA gets involved( & their arrears clock starts ticking!) My husband did this (filled in & returned the form)when he & his ex separated. The pwc was happy to take payments from the nrp for many many years at the going rate according the online calculator. She said she had cancelled the CSA case or we would have done it through them -would have paid the same -or possibly even less! Didn't realise it would all turn out like this ! Shouldn't we have had any documentation from CSA showing we were still under their jurisdiction like an annual statement (we still live in the same house we lived in then) in 8 years? It's wrong we have been left open to pay twice ! Just wouldn't want anyone to go through what we have had to this past year or so.

shoe*diva79

Cally_Smart wrote: »

One thing to remember is when the nrp fills out & returns the MEF(maintenance enquiry form) is when the CSA gets involved( & their arrears clock starts ticking!) My husband did this (filled in & returned the form)when he & his ex separated. The pwc was happy to take payments from the nrp for many many years at the going rate according the online calculator. She said she had cancelled the CSA case or we would have done it through them -would have paid the same -or possibly even less! Didn't realise it would all turn out like this ! Shouldn't we have had any documentation from CSA showing we were still under their jurisdiction like an annual statement (we still live in the same house we lived in then) in 8 years? It's wrong we have been left open to pay twice ! Just wouldn't want anyone to go through what we have had to this past year or so.

Cally, have you asked for your file? I find it very hard to believe that if there was a CSA case then no paperwork whatsoever was received in 8 years if a MEF was returned to them.

Your file will show all letters, phone calls etc so you can check the address communications were sent to.

Cally_Smart

Yes ,we got that for £10 last year, makes interesting bedtime reading ..if you can get your head round the codes/acronyms they use! We've been to MP who although sped things up & forwarded some letters etc said go to ICE but from what we have read we haven't got much confidence in that. He arranged a meeting with CSA but guess what,the day before they tell him they can't make it !We had a response to the MEF initially but she wanted us to pay her direct .We thought we had it covered as we had all proof by means of every bank statement we thought it would be easy to prove but nobody checked till now don't they think she would have contacted them before if she wasn't getting the support? Still i'm repeating myself now. They have been separated more than 10 years now.She left him for someone else.We have been together since then, having the children every weekend till they were all teenagers.Guess there's a hard lesson here ,never trust what the pwc tells you -get it in writing. We got £50 consolatory payment for CSA taking well over a year to say she had been back in touch (we could have saved ourselves paying that direct to her which they wont count !)so we had to pay all that again. It should all be over in a few years........ shame it has affected us so much. The whole system needs changing for the better I think.

shoe*diva79

Have you made official complaint? It appears ludicrous that you have to pay twice. SurelY if she wasn't receiving anything then she would have approached them before 10 years.

Take it to ICE.

Cally_Smart

Its about 8 years ,we have been dealing with them over for nearly 18 months now & they didn't tell us straight away that she contacted them -which is why we had the derisory £50 consolatory payment !

clearingout

Cally_Smart wrote: »

Yes ,we got that for £10 last year, makes interesting bedtime reading ..if you can get your head round the codes/acronyms they use! We've been to MP who although sped things up & forwarded some letters etc said go to ICE but from what we have read we haven't got much confidence in that. He arranged a meeting with CSA but guess what,the day before they tell him they can't make it !We had a response to the MEF initially but she wanted us to pay her direct .We thought we had it covered as we had all proof by means of every bank statement we thought it would be easy to prove but nobody checked till now don't they think she would have contacted them before if she wasn't getting the support? Still i'm repeating myself now. They have been separated more than 10 years now.She left him for someone else.We have been together since then, having the children every weekend till they were all teenagers.Guess there's a hard lesson here ,never trust what the pwc tells you -get it in writing. We got £50 consolatory payment for CSA taking well over a year to say she had been back in touch (we could have saved ourselves paying that direct to her which they wont count !)so we had to pay all that again. It should all be over in a few years........ shame it has affected us so much. The whole system needs changing for the better I think.

I am sorry for your situation - I hate stories such as yours because it causes problems for all of us. However, you must realise that maintenance (a) has nothing at all to do with who left who and (b) by far the majority of PWC (and NRP for that matter) can be trusted to do the decent thing by both their children and their ex. To suggest that no PWC can be trusted is insulting and serves only to draw battle lines for anyone reading this who might be at the start of the separation/divorce/child maintenance journey. The advice on keeping the CSA out of it if at all possible is the best advice you will get and if I may add to that, getting a mediator involved at an early stage to help talk things through may well saves thousands of pounds for both sides in the long term. More importantly, attempting to see things from the other's point of view helps to avoid the acute polarisation (if that makes sense) of 'sides' in what is a long journey which would be best, for the sake of the children, travelled alongside each other as much as is possible. There will always be disagreements but if you can handle them with as little as conflict as possible, everyone will win.

Alligg

Cally_Smart wrote: »

Yes,make sure your son gets dated receipts stating the money paid to her is being taken as Child Maintenance for (childs name ) or the pwc(parent with care) could deny it years down the line...many years... We are exactly in that situation !!Having proof of money paid to her bank account will not be enough.The CSA believe the pwc & you could have to pay it all again as arrears. They can take up to 40% of your income if in arrears situation! We had to ask for a tribunal to get the children that live with us taken off the arrears assessment as we had been paying the pwc direct and didn't know the CSA were involved.Hope your son can come to an arrangement without involving the CSA ..the powers they have are unbelievable & they tend to believe everything the pwc tells them! A lot of nrp's are having difficulty getting their reduction for overnight stays(one seventh off for each sleep) as the pwc wont admit when the nrp has them so they wont lose any money. Soon the CSA will charge the pwc for using the CSA & the nrp will have to pay possibly 20% more to use the service !!(I use the term very loosely!)

That happened to my OH, he had been paying an amount in cash to his ex and at first everything was ok then she got greedy so went to CSA and because he had no signed proof she had accepted any payments from him as child support he had to pay backdated and ended up paying arrears for a year,then after those were cleared she asked for a re assesment and they upped his payments and backdated that too.
I agree if he can get something in writing for a manageable amount then it makes life easier,set something up and get it witnessed and maybe agree to review it every year or something like that.
Don't let him be held to ransom by his ex

Cally_Smart

I agree with you .I only added the first fact to emphasise I wasn't on the scene or anything to do with the separation. I hadn't ever mentioned it in the 18 months I have been on here looking for advice. I meant the pwc in this sort of situation ,not in general, although it is probably best just not to go on trust alone ,relationships can break down. Please don't forget I was also a pwc myself & I like to think I always put the children's needs first.