Ex fraudulently claiming CSA, child benefit and tax credit

yan79

Hi. I'm writing on behalf of my husband. He has two children and has been separated from his ex wife for 15 years now. We always had a private agreement to pay maintenance until about 10 years ago and then his ex decided to go through the CSA. Anyway, we stopped paying for his eldest past year as she turned 20 and left education but continued to pay for his youngest who is now 17. In June this year his youngest left home and education. She moved in with her boyfriend and his family in a different city. The CSA are still claiming £460 a month from us. We usually pay £230 but they reckon we're a month in arrears but for the life of me I can't figure out why and they can't seem to explain it. They take it as deduction from earnings as that's the way we decided to pay when my husband changed jobs last March so we can't even cancel the payment. His ex is not entitled to claim this money as she doesn't even have a child living at home, she doesn't contribute to her upbringing (in fact she doesn't even have contact with her). The CSA say we still have to pay maintenance as my husbands ex still has an active claim (until September 2015) for child benefit and as far as we know, child tax credits too. They say while ever the benefit claim is active the the CSA payments automatically get taken from us. The CSA advised us to report her to the child benefit office which is what we've done (3 times!) but the benefit office say it could take 12-14 months to investigate. We've tried to get a message to his ex wife although we have no contact with her. She said she's "sorted it" which we know isn't the truth as the CSA have taken another £460 this morning. I called the CSA a few days ago and they did another benefit check on her and said her child benefit claim is still active.

His ex is a really unreasonable woman and we understand she's an alcoholic too (3 bottles of wine per day) so there's no chance we can try to talk to her. The CSA can't help until the benefits claim ends and the benefits office cants do anything either.

Wondering if anybody has a similar experience or offer is any advice please?
I'm unsure of the next steps to take and wondered whether a solicitors letter would help matters. According to my step children though, she ignores all post she receives as she's in so much debt (she's also got her eldest daughter into debt by taking loans out in her name and not paying the money back, this step daughter is also pregnant and living in this horrid environment of financial abuse, alcohol abuse and emotional abuse, but that's for a different thread)
I also wondered about the CAB and my step-mum said maybe contact our local MP but I'm unsure how this would help.

Any way, if you got as far as reading all of the above then thank you so much, I appreciate it.

Anna

dippy3103

Can you prove that she's living elsewhere? How is she being supported money wise?

yan79

She's being supported by her boyfriend, yes we can prove it by a letter from the family she lives with

pmlindyloo

The main thing here is that she is claiming child benefit when the child is no longer living with her.

You can report it here:

https://www.gov.uk/report-benefit-fraud

Personally I would suggest that you contact the child who can write saying where they now live (evidence) and that they have left full time education and what they are doing.

There is not much else you can do so best start the ball rolling.

yan79

Thanks for all the replies. I've reported her 3 times to the benefits office but they've said it'll take 12-14 months to investigate the case.

pmlindyloo

This link might be helpful as it is a similar scenario although the poster was paying by direct debit.

http://www.dad.info/dad-talk-forum/child-maintenance/31309-csa-payments-and-deceitful-ex-partner

If you read through the posts you will see that someone suggested that in cases like this your local MP might be useful.

haras_nosirrah

can you contact the family she is living with and ask them to put in a claim for child benefit - you will still have to pay maintenance but at least it will go to supporting the daughter rather than the alcoholic mother and will prompt them to investigate where the daughter lives as they won't pay child benefit twice for the same child

yan79

The thing is the family that are supporting her aren't entitled to child benefit anyway as the step daughter isn't in education

sheramber

If you were one month in arrears then one payment of £460 would bring you up to dats again , so why are you still paying £460 each month?

merlin68

Once she claims child benifit for her baby they will probably realise and stop it.

yan79

It's the older daughter that's having a baby, so she doesn't really come into the equation really so it won't affect the claim.
The arrears are because We didn't pay for two months but put the money in a savings account. Then they took £460 out of last months salary as deduction from earnings as they said we were in arrears and we'd paid DFE's before so they said they didn't have to inform us. So last month we paid for the previous two months and then this month we pay for last month and this month so this will go on & on until out case is closed. This is why I'm so frustrated. We can't afford such a massive amount every month, it's going to get us into financial difficulty.