CSA Attachment of earnings, bye bye job!

roywest

Hi to the forum.

I have had an attachment of earnings for a reasonable £230 per month. Imagine my surprise when I received my wageslip yesterday to find that Legal and Trade collections are now also dipping in through a court order for £450 for previous csa arrears.

So I'm having £680 robbed from my wages every month.

Seeing as I only take home £1100 per Month, I'm left with £420 per month to supposedly live on. That averages out over 52 weeks at £96 per week!

So, I'm doing 50 hours per week busting a gut for £1.92 per hour take home.

What am I supposed to do with that?

So, whats the answer? Well the CSA have now made it impossible for me to earn a living wage so I am going to tell my employer tomorrow that I'm off to join the benefits brigade and become a charge of the state.

The Government had me paying child support, plus received around £530 in tax and NI. Now, the'lll have to lose the £530 and pay for me, my ex Wife and my kids to live!

What a crazy system.

A human rights lawyer would be screaming from the rooftop if they found people in Indonesia stitching footballs at this slave wage!

After all the payments I've made to the CSA, how come I don't get tax credits? After all, that money is a cost for bringing up children. Obviously I'm the wrong sex as the women who have the kids get umpteen benefits, tax credits, you name it whilst the Father just gets hammered.

Welcome to the economics of the madhouse!

blaise802001

I agree with you, as a woman who has a husband who pays to the CSA it's ludicrous that the mother's word is also taken as fact. We have had hundreds of pounds in arrears because she decided to tell the CSA that we didn't have shared care of the children (when we still did) However they took her word for it and backdated the arrears to when she said we stopped having shared care...grrr So in effect we paid twice. I do find it ludicrous that you are now unable to afford to live sufficiently because of them. Do you have a mortgage etc??

aMeLia'S~MuMMY

blaise802001 wrote: »

it's ludicrous that the mother's word is also taken as fact. We have had hundreds of pounds in arrears because she decided to tell the CSA that we didn't have shared care of the children (when we still did) However they took her word for it and backdated the arrears to when she said we stopped having shared care...grrr sufficiently

You could have asked for a revision on this decision, however this must be done within 28 days of the assessment being done, you can still also report the change if shared care is still in existence but this will only go from the date you report it.

:A

blaise802001

You could have asked for a revision on this decision, however this must be done within 28 days of the assessment being done, you can still also report the change if shared care is still in existence but this will only go from the date you report it.

Thanks for that advice Amelia. Unfortunately we no longer have shared care of the children because of all this hassle. It really was a case of her cutting off her nose to spite her face. I wish we had known this information then, but when husband rang to question this he was never advised that he could request a revison of the decision.

OP sorry for hijacking your thread

duchy

So do you think you shouldn't have paid the arrears on your child's support ?
How much is the arrears and why weren't you paying support ?
Just trying to work out if you deserve the support you are asking for or if you simply chose not to fufil your obligations to your child until forced to.
I have my own beef with the CSA and their inability to collect money-even when both parents are in agreement and co-operating with them but it isn't clear if this is this kind of situation or something else.

black-saturn

Why werent you paying in the first place?

aMeLia'S~MuMMY

Arrears do not always accrue due to non payment, they can accrue when CSA do a change of circs but it takes them months to calculate ( as per blaise802001 )~ the nrp carries on paying their regular maintenance ( for the months reassessment ongoing) but when the reassessment is done the maintenance has gone up and extra payments are due for that period .'. creating an undercharge which are converted to arrears ( people usually refer to this as backdating of an assessment but it isn't really )
:A

roywest

Asking why I have arrears is irrelevant.

The point of my post is simply that whatever the rights and wrongs of why I have arrears, I was paying child support and paying tax and NI.

Surely that situation is better than the one I now find myself in in which I can no longer support myself due to these excessive amounts of money being taken from me and therefore having to go to the state to support 4 people!

Slapps

i think you need to sort this out with the csa before you jack your job in as i'm sure you can't claim benefits for 26 weeks due to making yourself out of work. think this through carefully and talk with the jobcentre as you could end up in a bigger mess than you are finding yourself in now.
hth

duchy

Hmmm not sure what tax and insurance have to do with it and of course it is your absolute right to disclose with information you are comfortable with and withhold that you are not although people are likely to draw their own conclusions .
Just be aware that if you hope to have any future relationship with your kids (I appreciate that you and your ex aren't in a position to have that now) chances are they will know that Dad deliberately threw in his job so he didn't have to pay for their support and the decision might come back to haunt you. It isn't just your ex you are damaging and there's a real risk your children will resent you for it. Just because there's a lot of anger now doesn't mean it will always be that way. You may feel that the CSA's calculations or methods are unfair but that isn't your children's fault (I'n assuming more than one child by the size of the arrears). I hope you investigate all ways of getting this decision overturned and payments reduced before taking a drastic step that you might regret later.

bonar

hear hear, I also agree they are your children and partly your financial responsibility. I have two older children now in there twenties. Their father refused to pay any maintenance, and guess what they simply want nothing to do with him. My ex even turned up at my son's work once, he worked in a bank, looking for a loan. he didn't even recognise his son and my son CHOSE not to tell him who he is. my daughter is getting married soon, and again wants nothing to do with her father.
SO the moral of the story is before you jack in your job, I suggest you start paying for your children, in this way they get what THEY need to survive in today's world, and you will maybe gain there respect. this is not the CSA fault but YOUR OWN.