CSA and Ex woes

Graydawg

Hey everyone. I am wondering if you can offer me some advice or assistance.

I am having a nightmare of a time with my Ex and since she has learned she can get more money out of me by going through the CSA she has continued to pursue it in order to try and ruin my life.

I split up with my ex at the start of 2012 and moved out of the Marital home. I left my 2 children, now 6 and nearly 3 with her and moved away to another area of the country.
I have since then divorced and through the divorce, it was agreed that I would pay £300 in maintenance every month. I have been paying this ever since and can tell you my wage has barely increased over the course of the past 2 years.
When we split, I took on a loan to pay for a mountain of debt that she had accrued living a lavish lifestyle whilst I was working away from home. She would buy food out or takeaway, clothes and alcohol and a lot of other things with the credit card of which I didn't know about in order to keep up with her friends whilst working part time. She spent more time with her friends during this period than she did at home and often spent the money I was earning on feeding them when they came to spend time with her.

Anyway I am digressing, I took out a loan to pay for 1 half of the debt, which was probably the wrong thing financially to do but I did it anyway and now I don't think there is anything I can do about this. Since then, the house has been sold, of which she got over £12k of the sale to which I was lucky if I got £4k of which most of it was used to pay off my expensive and frankly, useless solicitor.

She has now got in tow with a new man and has moved in with him and has gone from full time back to part time hours. She know knows that after contacting the CSA she can get more money out of me, by another £100 per month. I simply cannot afford to pay this as I am still paying for the debt that she ran up during the time that I was with her.
I have rent, loans, maintenance and food to pay for myself but none of that seems to come in to consideration when the CSA gets involved. They simply want to take as much money from me and leave me completely high and dry.

I am honestly lucky if I have £50 to myself after all my bills are paid. I can barely afford to clothe myself.

I am trying to pay in to my pension and company savings plans as this is for my future, which are deducted before tax and NI, but apparently on the new system, this doesn't matter as they take your gross salary and work out what you should be paying off that. Surely that is not fair? I mean they are taking a calculation before the tax has been taken off?!

I don't know what to do. I can barely afford to live myself and I can barely afford to see my children as they live at the other end of the country. (I haven't seen them since last year and miss them terribly)

Is there anything I can do to reduce the payment to the CSA? I fear that if this payment is enforced, I will not be able to afford to see my children.

Please help, it feels like nobody cares about my situation in the slightest.

Thanks in advance

Thegirl

Your ex is entitled to the amount the CSA calculate. Any settlement regarding maintenance included in the divorce can be reassessed after a year by the CSA, you should have been advised this by your solicitor. One of the reasons for this is that you state your income has not increased, but it could have done, it could have doubled, which is why the reassessment process is in place. You are saying that you are paying 25% less than she is entitled to. That is a lot less and she is supporting your children.

If you have £50 a month to live on then you should not be paying into a company saving scheme at this time. There is no future if you cannot support yourself in the present.

The most helpful thing to suggest you be to go to the debt free wanabee board, put up a statement of account and ask for assistance as to where you can make savings.

PreludeForTimeFeelers

Which system are you on?

Pension payments are taken into account on the new system too.

Although it's true that it's based.on gross payments prior to deductions, the percentages are smaller than they were on CS2 so the actual end calculations are very similar.

shoe*diva79

You have less then £50 to live on after your bills are paid yet can afford to pay into savings and pension whilst not seeing your children? Why move so far away if you wouldnt be able to afford to maintain a relationship with them?

The CSA amount is the MINIMUM you will be legally bound to give your ex wife.