Reinstated CSA Debt

TheSnowman

I had a letter a couple of months ago from the CSA informing me that my account is now closed with a balance of "Nil". I have now recieved a letter claiming they have reinstated a debt of almost £24,000 - yes £24,000!!!

I wouldn't be able to repay that, I've got two more little kids and have very little spare cash.

How can they spring up such a large debt from well over ten years ago?

Has anyone had any experience of receiving this kind of letter and what was the outcome?

Mupette

Why didn't you pay child support back then, it's a debt you should pay to YOUR children

TheSnowman

I did pay, the closing balance was nil, my son is now 21.

I know there was a miscalculation in the early 2000's in which I though had been sorted as this amount never appeared on any further statements until now.

I would like some constructive advice before I contact the CSA.

MEM62

Mupette wrote: »

Why didn't you pay child support back then, it's a debt you should pay to YOUR children

You gotta love such useful and constructive posts. No assumptions or judgements made there then, eh Mupette? :-)

@TheSnowman You need to get a full breakdown of the claim from the CSA to see how they have arrived at this figure. They are know not to be the most slick of operations and errors are far from uncommon. At some stage you might need to trawl through your own financial records to establish what payments you made.

Mupette

MEM62 wrote: »

You gotta love such useful and constructive posts. No assumptions or judgements made there then, eh Mupette? :-)

@TheSnowman You need to get a full breakdown of the claim from the CSA to see how they have arrived at this figure. They are know not to be the most slick of operations and errors are far from uncommon. At some stage you might need to trawl through your own financial records to establish what payments you made.

Seeing as their first post didn't say they did pay, just that there was a nil balance which could mean anything.

And that the title says Reinstated

ohreally

TheSnowman wrote: »

I would like some construction advise before I contact the CSA.

Beware of overhead hazards and wear PPE appropriate to the job.

TheSnowman

ohreally wrote: »

Beware of overhead hazards and wear PPE appropriate to the job.

Haha, well spotted, damn you predictive text.

kazzah

yes the same happened to my hubby he was hit with a debt letter for 10,000
AND BEFORE ANYONE JUMPS IN PLEASE READ THE REST OF THE POST!

Hubby had a child from a very short lived relationship and had always paid maintenance directly from his salary to the Courts

in the 1990's come and the CSA is set up and despite the claims being they were chasing absent fathers - they did in fact target those already paying under the court system

hubby was on incapacity benefit at the time of £110 per week and we had two small children ourselves by then - the CSA deemed that hubby should be paying £55 per week of his £110 to them - despite the fact that this left us destitute and relying on my family to feed us and help with bills and mortgage.

we did run up arrears- hubby spiralled into a deep depression and really could not cope.
eventually we DID get to a point where our arrears were under control - and thankfully his child left school and joined the army at 16 - whereupon he was earning more than hubby brought home

we owed about £400 which we tried to pay off and eventually was written off and we were told it would not need to be repaid ( this was when the CSA was in turmoil and under a lot of pressure due to men committing suicide over the debts)

fast forward to three years ago............ hubby gets a PHONE call at work on his mobile phone asking how he plans to repay his debt - hubby says I don't have a CSA debt - chap says yes you do it's £10,000
hubby nearly has a heart attack (literally) has a panic attack and is sent home from work
the letter arrived the next day - yep- they were DEMANDING £10k for unpaid maintenance - hubby was so traumatised he couldn't read the letter properly
I looked at it and on further reading noted the dates that they were claiming he owed money from
it was for 5 years AFTER his child had left school and joined the army - the person writing the letter hadn't even worked out that someone who was born in 1978 could NOT still be eligible for maintenance in 1999 -2001 even if he had been in full time education the maintenance order had only ever been while the child was in full time education or the age of 19 - which ever came first

I was furious -w e found the letter we had kept from the 1990's saying the debt was NIL and called the DWP they said that the government had now stated the funds had to be repaid and they wanted a payment there and then - it took us about 45 minutes on the phone to get them to understand that hubby had ceased to be responsible for the payments in 1994 and we had no intention of paying.
Eventually they back tracked and said they just wanted £345 back

I politely told them to clear off that they had nearly caused my husband to be hospitalised and I was going to counter claim for distress due to the sheer incompetence of someone not being able to use a calculator and work out they were claiming for 7 years that were not due.

every so often they send a letter and every so often I call them ( hubby cannot deal with them he is too emotional about it) and tell them NO

so the moral of this is MAKE SURE they have the correct dates and claim hardship - they should NOT be able to harass you like this.