Does Child Maintenance count as income for Sequestration contributions?

simple-living-ma

Hi
A little help needed.

I was Sequestrated March 2014.

This was supposed to be through the "LILA" route which would have meant no contributions, however the Money Advisor messed this up and issued a certificate, meaning it was treated as a regular Sequestration. As a result my income + expenditure were assessed and I pay a contribution of £45 per month and have paid it for over 2 years. I only work 16hours per week and am a single parent of 2 with nursery fees, I earn £600 per month plus get housing benefit, tax credits and child benefit. I have been ignoring their 6 monthly requests for income and expenditure and bank statements basically because they lost the first set of paperwork and then were rude and unhelpful and I have already told them I still live off of benefits. At one point I requested a reduction but never pursued this. I have 2 young children and pay high nursery fees.

Today I received a hand delivered "formal letter before court action" from the Sheriff Officer requesting my compliance and bank statements for the Trustee or face being possibly ordered in front of the Sheriff or imprisonment.

My issue is, my children's father now sends £60 per week child maintenance which I have not declared but will show on bank statements. Will this be counted as income when assessing my contribution? Should I include it on the form? It gives me more of an excess income but I feel awful that my children are going to suffer by losing out on this income if they count it and take it? I would have to stop their activities etc if so and I don't think their father would continue to pay if he found this out anyway! I cannot find the answer in any legislation or google.

If they do take it into account and increase my contributions, will they make me pay contributions for longer than the 36 months? I'm supposed to make my last payment in April 2018.

If I ignore this again are they likely to take it to the Sheriff Court? I was discharged automatically after a year, had only around £3k debt but wanted a fresh start, feel like the Trustee is just trying to take as much money as possible as nothing will be paid to the creditors after their fees?

mwarby

makememillions wrote: »

If I ignore this again are they likely to take it to the Sheriff Court? I was discharged automatically after a year, had only around £3k debt but wanted a fresh start, feel like the Trustee is just trying to take as much money as possible as nothing will be paid to the creditors after their fees?

IMHO yes they are likely to take it to court, for all they know there could have been a massive windfall your trying to keep, or you are now earning much more than 600 a month.

In both bankruptcy in England and possibly your case, its very common the creditors get nothing, this however doesn't mean you shouldn't have to pay an IPA or equivalent (if that was the case virtually nobody would pay em)

I think you need to look at all of your income and expenditure, and supply this and bank statements, and try to come up with a workable payment. Like you say you've got about a year to go, better to make best of that than go to court and end up with a BRO(Bankruptcy Restriction Order) or similar

mummyofboys1985

Did your SOA not include monthly amounts for activities/clubs for the children?

I done my SOA last week and they asked about clubs/entertaining even haircuts. They will take maintenance into consideration I think. When did they payments start? They might think

mummyofboys1985

You didn't provide statements to hide these payments so tread carefully

Nostrus

Frankly this is a bit of a grey area. If it was going the other way, i.e. you were paying the current maintenance to an ex-partner, then you would have to continue doing so. Believe me, many ex-partners have thought that getting sequestrated would get them out of having to pay maintenance.

It looks as though they will take it to sheriff court if needs be, so I would comply with them and provide all necessary information.