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After many years of paying the ex directly she has decided to go through the CSA even though they have been lurking in the background.
Could someone give me some advice please if I try and explain the background?
I have 4 children with their mother, 3 of which still live with her, aged 17,16 & 15, 2 of them at college the younger one at school.
The eldest who has just turned 18 in August lives with me and has done for the past 5 years.
Since he turned 18 the ex had contacted the CSA to say he was no longer in full-time education which is true.
He currently works up to 16 hours a week (part-time) at the minimum wage level.
The CSA have sent a letter saying that my montly increase of payments should be £99pw now for my three lads. The lad that lives with me is now discounted as 'irrelevant' (their words) and my discount for them has been taken off.
Is this correct?
Also - I collect them every other week which is a round trip (twice) of 280 miles which costs a fortune in fuel as you can imagine.
Can I throw this into the equation if I appeal against the decision and ask for it to be taken into consdiereation?
I already get the 52 nights per year rule discount.
Another question - the 17 year old will be going to Uni next year - what happens then? He'll be 18 by the time he starts.
Will she still be able to claim for him as he's still in full-time education even though he has no plans to live at home?
So many questions! Hope you can help please.
Hi Roberto and welcome 🙂
If you google CSA calculator you will be able to calculate how much you should be paying, have a wage slip handy, it will help to fill out the questions.
As your eldest has been living with you for the past five years, you should have been in receipt of the child benefit for him, as you are the dependant parent.
I dont think CSA will take into consideration travel costs unfortunately and as far as the 17 yr old is concerned, I think as long as he is in full time education, they may continue to consider you are liable for maintenance. At the bottom of the page you will see a link to Child Maintenance Options, it might be worth following the link as they will be able to give you the right advice. If you take a look at the stickys at the top of the Finance section there are links to advice on CSA and CMO. Hope that helps.
Good luck with everything.
Hi
Take a look at the CSA calculator as nannyJane suggests.
However, as I see it, the CSA are correct that your 18 year old is no longer counted (assuming he's not still in education as well as working). The simple rule is if child benefit is paid for a child, then you are liable for child maintenance, so as far as your 17 year old is concerned, when he starts university, the child benefit will stop and you won't be paying maintenance for him (it will stop the september after he leaves school, not July).
As for travel costs, the CSA expect you to pay the first 15 each week of travel costs to keep in contact with your children - anything above this (and I think it's petrol costs, not car running costs) you are able to take off your takehome pay to give a resulting figure on which the CSA calculation is based - at a guess, at 280 miles 26 times a year comes to about 650 per year in fuel at about 40mpg. Unfortunately, this is less than the 780 per year that the CSA expect you to pay, so you aren't able to reduce your payments to the CSA for travel.
Thank you both for this. I fear she will still try to squeeze everything out of me whilst she can.
I'm faced with a total fruit cake I'm afraid, all these years on (15 apart 10 divorced) and the [censored] continues to go on and on and on...
Cheers
Hi Roberto
Sounds familiar I'm afraid. It does end, and it will probably be quite a shock to your ex when it does - the more she gets, the more that she becomes reliant on it.
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