CSA Back payments question.

emmmski

Firstly apologies if this question has been posted/answered before I have been through the first few pages of threads without success.
My question regards back payment of child support. An estranged couple with one child (12 yrs) have had a private arrangement in place for the last 11 years where the father pays the mother an amount by weekly standing order.
If at any time this arrangement was to go sour and the mother decided to go through the csa for payment.Is the amount paid previously taken into consideration by the csa? Ie if the father had been over paying would she be owed less ? Or if he had been underpaying would she be able to claim back pay? Or since was a private agreement between both parties is it totally disregarded?
Hope that makes sense. As always any advice grateful received.

jacklink

i hope this helps a little, we pay standing order 'through the csa' so that its recorded each payment and amount, does your friend not do it this way ?

PreludeForTimeFeelers

emmmski wrote: »

Firstly apologies if this question has been posted/answered before I have been through the first few pages of threads without success.
My question regards back payment of child support. An estranged couple with one child (12 yrs) have had a private arrangement in place for the last 11 years where the father pays the mother an amount by weekly standing order.
If at any time this arrangement was to go sour and the mother decided to go through the csa for payment.Is the amount paid previously taken into consideration by the csa? Ie if the father had been over paying would she be owed less ? Or if he had been underpaying would she be able to claim back pay? Or since was a private agreement between both parties is it totally disregarded?
Hope that makes sense. As always any advice grateful received.

Has there ever been a case with the CSA? If there hasn't, then any payments made or payments missed prior to their involvement are disregarded, they only have jurisdiction from when the case is opened.

Cally_Smart

Tell them to check there has never been a case open. If the non resident parent ever returned an enquiry form to them there will be! We paid for many years direct payments to the pwc who said she had closed the case.We never heard from CSA for many many years & we're still at same address(no annual statement or anything to tell say you were under their jurisdiction)until 2012 when they said the pwc had contacted them(it took them 14 months to tell us this meaning we paid another 14 months to her we could have paid to CSA instead for her but which wont count.Once the CSA told her how much she could get she of course wont say she's had the CM direct.It meant we had 'arrears' of nearly £8000 !! CSA not been very helpful to be honest! Had to fight for a tribunal ,get MP involved etc It's still going on to be honest ........I wouldn't wish this stress on anybody

emmmski

Cally_Smart wrote: »

Tell them to check there has never been a case open. If the non resident parent ever returned an enquiry form to them there will be! We paid for many years direct payments to the pwc who said she had closed the case.We never heard from CSA for many many years & we're still at same address(no annual statement or anything to tell say you were under their jurisdiction)until 2012 when they said the pwc had contacted them(it took them 14 months to tell us this meaning we paid another 14 months to her we could have paid to CSA instead for her but which wont count.Once the CSA told her how much she could get she of course wont say she's had the CM direct.It meant we had 'arrears' of nearly £8000 !! CSA not been very helpful to be honest! Had to fight for a tribunal ,get MP involved etc It's still going on to be honest ........I wouldn't wish this stress on anybody

It was a situation like this I am hoping to avert!

Thanks all for your replies. There has never been any involvement from the csa aside from a few threats made to use them and maybe the odd phone call. But no forms ever completed/case opened.
As I said the this agreement has been in place for 11 years and usually works well. It's done by direct standing order so there is a paper trail too. But every now and then , as happens in these situations, arguments occur and it's at this point that the threat of csa is sometimes used. Over the 11 years the amount paid has varied due to different situations and now I've looked at the calculator I see it's been overpaid for some of this time but is now currently underpaid.
I was worried if the csa ever did get involved they would take in to account the last 11 years payments and one of them could end up with a big bill! Glad to hear that this will not be the case.

Thank you kindly. :-)

PreludeForTimeFeelers

emmmski wrote: »

It was a situation like this I am hoping to avert!

Thanks all for your replies. There has never been any involvement from the csa aside from a few threats made to use them and maybe the odd phone call. But no forms ever completed/case opened.
As I said the this agreement has been in place for 11 years and usually works well. It's done by direct standing order so there is a paper trail too. But every now and then , as happens in these situations, arguments occur and it's at this point that the threat of csa is sometimes used. Over the 11 years the amount paid has varied due to different situations and now I've looked at the calculator I see it's been overpaid for some of this time but is now currently underpaid.
I was worried if the csa ever did get involved they would take in to account the last 11 years payments and one of them could end up with a big bill! Glad to hear that this will not be the case.

Thank you kindly. :-)

'The odd phone call' - was this from the CSA?

emmmski

No, there's never been any direct contact from csa.when the csa "threats" have been used and one party tells the other they have spoken to csa and know what the payments should be,I'm assuming that this information has been gathered from a phone call. Could just be from friends/colleagues/ online forums /csa calculator, they may have never actually made the call , I don't know. But my point was that if a phone call to the csa has ever been made that's the extent of any previous dealings with them to date. Does that make sense? Hope so. Thank you all, again :-)

Cally_Smart

When CSA contact you, you get a form to fill in & return.It's called a MEF(maintenance enquiry form) My husband did this when they split up & gave all the details etc but the pwc was happy for us to carry on doing what we always have(looking back -I bet she was !) ,having children every weekend,giving her what she asked for for the 4 children.We had no reason to think she wasn't happy-she even said she closed the case,we were very foolish to believe her -we realise that now.Paper trails mean nothing to CSA they take the word of the pwc as gospel (in our case )over having had maintenance & having the children over night.Many people have had similar problems.The relevant children are all above CSA liability now(just!)& the pwc has alienated them all over the past 2 years to take her side.We've lost out all round ,as has our young son, who had a good relationship with his siblings until then!
Please advise your friends to make sure everything is checked & double checked.I wouldn't wish this on anybody....

medsec_222

Cally - my son has a very similar story to yours. The CSA contacted him when he and his ex. split up, but at that point he had his children over 50%, of the time. He and his ex. were sharing the care, going halves with school uniforms, holidays etc, and I was doing child minding for both of them at no cost of them, so that they could both work. His ex. seemed happy with this arrangement. He informed the CSA. He never heard another word from them for two and a half years, when they wrote him asking about the present situation. He replied with an up-date. They did not reply to him until six months later, when they told him that he had arrears of nearly £8000, despite the fact he was still sharing care of his children, and buying everything that they needed whilst they resided with him. They called him an absent father at this point. In my opinion, the CSA should concentrate on those fathers who refuse to maintain their children, and who still seem to get away with evading their responsibilities towards their children.

Cally_Smart

Definitately medsec222...and the truly absent fathers get away with not supporting their children at all ! Some get away with everything by job hopping,leave good jobs ,getting their partner to support them & pay minimal amount.
Quite often with the arrears the CSA 'find', simply can't afford to keep a roof over their own heads ,let alone have any money to take their children out when they have them.We are trying to get a better FAIRER system but it's hard to get listened to.The media are silenced by the CSA .Our nrp's aren't absent fathers at all & it is very disrespectful for CSA to call them that! It's time someone listened to us !!

PreludeForTimeFeelers

A MEF doesn't always need to be sent - if the CSA contact an NRP and gather the information over the phone there and then they'll not send the form out.