help with child support please

wardreefa

could someone please help me with an issue of alleged money owing to the state of £7200

TheWaltons_3

wardreefa wrote: »

could someone please help me with an issue of alleged money owing to the state of £7200

I presume you have an ex who has been claiming benefits.

wardreefa

my daughter is now sixteen and the break up was 15 years ago.
i have only had contact with the csa back in 1994 in which the made an attachment of earnings for £600 per month.
the following month i was made redundant from this job and i contacted the csa to inform them.
i then found out my x parnter started work and had stoped claiming.
i have just had contact from the csa a month ago stating that i owe my x parnter £11,300 and i owe the state £7,200.
since then i have spoken with my x parnter and she has now closed the case and i have recieved a letter from the csa stating this.
i then recieved a phone call from the csa saying that i still owe £7,200 to the state so i arranged a meeting with a csa officer.
the meeting took place at my parents house last week and the officer stated that as there has been long gaps between them trying to contact me through different places of work that he thought that the case would be completly droped and that he would make the report based on this.
he then said for me to contact the csa if i dont here from them within 3 weeks but yesterday the csa phoned and asked what i could afford to pay with the alleged £7,200 dept.
even when i had a meeting with the csa officer he could not show me any evidence of this.
during this sixteen years i have had many jobs with different pay structure and have had different addresses with different cost for rent ect....

i have now asked the csa to contact the officer that i had this meeting with to try and sort this out.
i am now at my wits end with this and unsure as what i need to do.

could you please advice me on this matter

kelloggs36

The Face to Face officer will send the report to whomever referred it - the person you spoke to when you asked for it for them to action. In some cases it doesn't matter what the Face to Face person says, another section may override them! It is very frustrating when this happens.

What you need is an arrears breakdown - this will show the period for which the debt is due. The whole thing hinges on what your circumstances were and when they changed. Even if you told them of another job, they should have done another assessment and the amount owed would be based on this. It doesn't matter whether or not they chased you during this time - the debt cannot legally be written off.

What you need to be sure of is the following:

When you were made redundant, does this cover the time when the debt was building up? If so, can you prove that you told them you had been made redundant?

Is this debt from a very long time ago when you were in your job?

Is this debt from a period after you were made redundant but had another job? If so, then there will be nothing you can do but to make arrangements to pay the debt off.

If the debt was from a period before July 2000 then you can't be taken to Court over it, although they can get a DEO on you again.

niecsey

Hi can the last poster tell me how they cant take you to court for anything owed before july 2000 please? Cheers

kelloggs36

Because it will be statute barred apparently although I understood that CSA debt couldn't be statute barred! It may be worth getting legal advice on whether this debt is statute barred or not as some say yes and some say no!

Cozworth806

The regulations have been claified recently on this point.

If they assessed you prior to July 2000 then they cannot take you to court for arrears prior to this debt, but if they assessed you after this date (say first assessment was done in 2001, but was backdated to 1994) then they can take you to court.

NACSA_CHAIR

Just to clarify: Child support debt is not time barred as DEOs can collect debt of any age. However, debt that required court based enforcements, such as bailiffs, charging orders etc - first required a liability order, which could not consider debts over 6 years (ie time barred) Thus on 12 July 2006, they amended the law, so that child support debt was not time barred through the courts either. Although the amendment to law was granted, it was not made retrospect, thus only debt that accrued after 12 July 2000 (ie debt that was aged 6 years on the date of the change in law) could be collected.

Consequently, liability orders made now, could cover debt that is 7 years of age, and by next year, can cover 8 years of debt - etc etc etc

kelloggs36

that's interesting!