CSA Debt.......PLEASE HELP !!!

silverfox1969

OK. Just to set the record straight, I have always supported by two children and at no time defaulted on any payments........well, that is what I thought !
However, I have just received a telephone call and now a letter advising me of the fact that I have a debt of £122.89 which needs to be paid. In the case I fail to pay they have mentioned Court Action and an attchement of earnings order.
This purported Debt goes back to 2001/2002......yep, over 10 years ago.
In addition to this, my children are both now in full time work and my case was closed in September 2012.
Please, please, please can someone let me know if I have a legal obligation to pay this debt ??
THANK YOU IN ADVANCE AS THIS IS STREESING ME OUT

shoe*diva79

Its £122. Why are you letting it stress you out?

Anyway, pay £10 for your file so you can see where the arrears have come from. The money may be owed to the SOS rather then your ex and CM never goes away so if you do indeed owe it, you will need to pay it.

silverfox1969

Thanx for your advise Shoe diva but there is allot more to the story and I am positive that its the EX.
The debt is over 10 yrs so I was informed Litigtion would not be an option as any debt is Statue Barred after a period of 6yrs, if no notice has been given of the said debt.

shoe*diva79

Your wrong. It will be the CSA have done an audit which has thrown the arrears up. Has your ex been on state benefits at any point before 2010? If so, high chance the debt is owed to SOS and not your ex.

Regardless, this type of debt isnt covered by the staue barred rules. You WILL have to pay it (if you owe it) and you can either do tht willingly in one lump sum or coming to an payment agreement, or they will just take it direct from your wages. They can take upto 40% of your salary so because the amount is so small I would guess the while lot would be taken in one hit.

But you need to find you if you do owe the money. And the only way to do that is request your file, which costs £10.

justontime

We had a demand for a much larger amount of alleged arrears from about 15 years. My husband had always been compliant with no arrears, he'd even had an overpayment paid back to him a couple of years before so we were horrified by the demand for thousands of pounds worth of 'arrears'. There was no explanation accompanying the demand and after several phone calls we still hadn't got a satisfactory explanation. We were scared because we didn't have that sort of money and there was no way that we could pay what they wanted.

We contacted our MP's local office and one of the staff got involved. They got some answers from CSA about when the 'arrears' were accrued and they helped us to challenge the decision. It took months, it is very hard to find evidence from that long ago, but with determination and a lot of effort we proved that the arrears were not owed - in fact the CSA owed my husband a small amount of money.

The amount they want from you is a lot smaller, but at the very least they should give you a clear explanation of why the arrears accrued and why they have not attempted to collect them until now. Ring and ask your MP for help. To be fair in our case the people we spoke to at CSA did their best to help, and thankfully they didn't attempt to collect the 'arrears' while we were disputing the case. I hope you manage to get some answers.

Csa_Survivor

justontime wrote: »

We had a demand for a much larger amount of alleged arrears from about 15 years. My husband had always been compliant with no arrears, he'd even had an overpayment paid back to him a couple of years before so we were horrified by the demand for thousands of pounds worth of 'arrears'. There was no explanation accompanying the demand and after several phone calls we still hadn't got a satisfactory explanation. We were scared because we didn't have that sort of money and there was no way that we could pay what they wanted.

We contacted our MP's local office and one of the staff got involved. They got some answers from CSA about when the 'arrears' were accrued and they helped us to challenge the decision. It took months, it is very hard to find evidence from that long ago, but with determination and a lot of effort we proved that the arrears were not owed - in fact the CSA owed my husband a small amount of money.

The amount they want from you is a lot smaller, but at the very least they should give you a clear explanation of why the arrears accrued and why they have not attempted to collect them until now. Ring and ask your MP for help. To be fair in our case the people we spoke to at CSA did their best to help, and thankfully they didn't attempt to collect the 'arrears' while we were disputing the case. I hope you manage to get some answers.

Hi justontime,
It really is quite unbelievable isn't it, where else in life has anyone in their day to day lives ever been presented with any kind of bill without a proper up to date account and breakdown for why that money is owed!. Why is CSA allowed to get away with this, it is nothing less than bad practice and it does sometimes make you wonder whether its actually legal to ask for money without proof that its actually owed!
Even if you owed money to" Gold Tooth Tony" with the two Staffordshire Bull Terriers, you would probably get a reason as to why you owed him money , even if is at 1000%.
I cant wait to get home from from work and read any of the regular CSA associated contributors justification for this one!

Cally_Smart

My husband was told he owed £8000 when we hadn't missed a direct payment to the pwc since they split up ! They (CSA) said the pwc had to say the money she received every month direct from our bank was CM !The divorce was settled before this so no debts left to her but CSA wouldn't listen to us!We fought for a tribunal to get children that lived with us taken of the so called 'arrears' but have to pay the rest ! Most unfair system we are left struggling because of her dishonesty!

justontime

Csa_Survivor wrote: »

Hi justontime,
It really is quite unbelievable isn't it, where else in life has anyone in their day to day lives ever been presented with any kind of bill without a proper up to date account and breakdown for why that money is owed!. Why is CSA allowed to get away with this, it is nothing less than bad practice and it does sometimes make you wonder whether its actually legal to ask for money without proof that its actually owed!
Even if you owed money to" Gold Tooth Tony" with the two Staffordshire Bull Terriers, you would probably get a reason as to why you owed him money , even if is at 1000%.
I cant wait to get home from from work and read any of the regular CSA associated contributors justification for this one!

To be fair to CSA the original 'debt' in our case was due to a fraudulent claim where false evidence and false contact details were given, so my husband was never contacted. He was still living with the PWC at that time, in fact one of their children was born during that period! I don't blame CSA for that, the blame rests with the person who made the fraudulent claim as a single parent.

However it became clear when we got copies of all the CSA documents that they had connected the false claim with my husband as soon as the genuine claim was made (in 2002). No attempt was made to recover the 'arrears' or to make my husband aware of the 'debt'. If he had known about it then he would have been in a much better position to obtain evidence to prove that they were living as a couple during the period in question. He has been compliant throughout his claim, they have always known his address and phone number so there is no excuse for waiting almost 15 years before sending a demand for the money that they believed was owed.

I blame the system rather than individual members of staff. On the whole most of the staff members we have dealt with over the years have tried to be helpful, but they are limited by the systems and procedures that they have work with. Even with evidence of address at the time (HMRC, employer, child's birth certificate, utilities etc) statements from family members, school records, photos of family events and proof of joint bank account they still accepted the word of the PWC over all the evidence. Thankfully we remembered that when he got a new job they had both had to swear an oath in front of a solicitor (in order to qualify for a travel pass) stating that they had been living as a couple for at least two years. We were able to get copies of this and it covered almost all of the disputed period. Without that crucial piece of evidence we faced losing our home because they were asking for a huge amount of money and we simply didn't have it.

PreludeForTimeFeelers

OP - ask them to send you an account breakdown showing what payments were made and what payments were missed.

CSAworkerx

PreludeForTimeFeelers wrote: »

OP - ask them to send you an account breakdown showing what payments were made and what payments were missed.

this. Normally id advise to ring and ask, but if the debt is 10 years old the caseworker will probly struggle to tell you what you need to know, so ask for the breakdown.