[Solved] CMS Tribunal sham

Hi there

This isn’t my area of knowledge to be honest. I think you can complain about the way it was handled, but not the decision, for that you might have to go to the Independent Case Examiner.

Here’s a link to the complaints procedure

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-courts-and-tribunals-service/about/complaints-procedure

You can also ask your MP to refer you to,the Parliamentary Omsbudsman

Best of luck

Here’s a recent post that I’ve copied and pastedfrom a member called defrauded.

Go straight to the HM Courts & Tribunal Service, with the link shown below;

www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-c...bunals-service/about

I wasted so much time trying to explain my situation to the Child Maintenance Service, it isn't worth the stress or hassle speaking with them.

Your experience is not unique, the CMS is a young organisation focused on bringing in revenue and seemingly not capable of dealing with individual cases.

The appeal process could take up to 12 months and although it has been nearly 6 months since they ruled in my favour, the CMS have failed to reimburse me my overpayment.

My next step is to take the HM Courts & Tribunal Services' decision to the Independant Case Examiner, but this can only be done once the CMS have scratched their heads for 6 months.

Keep going and don't lose your cool.

My on going nightmare continues but I do feel there is light at the end of the tunnel and I have been advised to take my case to the police once concluded as my ex committed fraud by claiming from the lapless CMS staff, who failed to even check on the validity of her claim.

Good luck and I hope this helps.

Hello & commiserations. I have just registered for exactly this subject. My ex is taking me to appeal for undeclared income, when CM changed on me becoming Director of Limited Company.

Issue seems to be that when you are PAYE working for a third party, they calculate on gross pay, but when I submitted my earnings as a Director based on 11,500 salary and dividends they worked it out on net. I expected them to apply a formula to add corp tax and dividend tax, and come up with the equivalent amount.

A long story, I have offered to pay the full historical amount voluntarily, but she says she does not trust me, will not communicate and has chosen to go down the HM Courts route.

I have been honest with what I am paying myself, the records tie up with HMRC incl dividends, however my one area where they could (reading your post) decide I am not playing ball, is that I do not pay myself personally everything that I am paid as a contractor, I leave some in the company. Was this your issue and therefore they have awarded on your income to the limited company?

Also as yet, despite being contacted by CMS to say she is appealing and receiving one letter from HM Court, asking if I wanted my address to remain annonymous, I have received nothing further. I was, or am, expecting a letter asking me to submit reams of accounts, bank statements etc, plus her evidence, but after 8 weeks I have received nothing. How does this process work?

Thanks for any help.

Hi HRabbit,

I don't know your circumstances but I have been genuinely self employed for over 12 years but only went from sole trader to Ltd last year (for legitimate commercial reasons that I demonstrated to the Tribunal). The glitch was that I let me sole trader account run on for a few months as clients were still paying into it (some by accident and some due to having older outstanding invoices). I was actually just letting it run down to zero before closing it and did just that. They then looked on my tax return and unfortunately my accountant had put the last day of trading as 05 April 2018 which was the mistake that they focused on. The truth of the matter is that if they had looked at it in any detail they would have seen that it was all quite low value transactions which don't add up to the historical income figure that they did me for. That is the reason why I say they don't really care.

The process was: they write to you asking if you would like your address to be anonymous, then (a few months later) they write with a date for the tribunal (about a month away from the date of the letter). Other than that that was all I received. My ex sent in a big bundle of bitter twaddle which (was generally ignored in the end) and I got sent a copy of it all. Likewise if I sent anything in (the deadline is 7 days before the hearing) then they sent her a copy. I would advise sending anything recorded delivery at just 8 days before. That way it gives your ex as little time as possible to go through what you have provided. If you are relying on bank statements etc I would suggest that you send them in yourself as they didn't ask for mine (which might in fact have shed some light on things).

It was held in a room with a Boy-Judge and an Gandalf-Accountant (who were like Bert and Ernie from the Muppets and behaved much the same) and I was sat right next to my ex (she stank like a wet ashtray). They then fired a few financial questions at me (which if you are all pretty straight anyway they are not a problem) then moved onto the Shared Care issue by which point I think they had made their mind up and were just going through the motions. Financially, I realise now that they were just trying to trip me up, which even though I have done absolutely nothing untoward...they did. The biggest piece of advice that I can offer is: just because you have complied with HMRC regulations etc don't rely on that to prove that nothing untoward has gone on, you will need to prove it to them that you have sound legitimate reasons for your financial actions. Even then they might not take any notice though.

They asked the questions and I answered them. That was about it really. I was hoping for some discussion and reasoning to explain things but they were quite clear that that wasn't going to happen. They also did not offer any opportunity to put questions to my ex to explain herself which would have made certain things quite apparent.

All in all it was a bit of a Kangaroo court and has utterly undermined my faith in ever getting any common sense decision sorted.

They then brought us both back in 30 mins later to give us the decision. It was very bluntly delivered by the Boy-judge who was more eager to get on with his next case than explain his decision. At this point I asked them how on earth I was supposed to be able to afford this and they both did the old 'looking down and writing a lot' manoeuvre. I told them that they were both pathetic, shameful and the whole thing was sexist and biased and that the boy judge could write that down too if he liked (which I think he might of!). I might end up in a bit of bother for actually daring to express my thoughts but it did make me feel a whole lot better afterwards and I would do the same again as the whole thing was just a mockery of common sense and reason.

I consulted with Bob Pape at 'Child support solutions' who was a mine of knowledge as he deals with this day in day out. However I couldn't really afford him for the hearing though. If I could have done I would have used his services more though.

If I had to do it again I think I would make absolutely sure that I told them the clear reasoning behind what was in front of them, rather than waiting to be asked. I would also think of some better insults too!

I hope that this helps in some way. Feel free to send me a message if I can be of help (or anyone else if you are in a similar situation)?

Good luck

The latest saga of this shambolic saga rumbles on:

Today I learnt from the CMS that the HMCTS had held another Tribunal - but this time......without actually informing me!

Other than a letter asking me whether I wanted to keep my address confidential (received only a few weeks ago) that's the only piece of correspondence I've had from them. Zero chance to put my case forward whatsoever or even actually attend!

I think that this is a). incredulous & b). grossly incompetent.The Judge who dealt with the last Tribunal wasn't the sharpest tool in the box and managed to take 4 attempts to get the decision drafted correctly (simple typos and getting each party muddled up - obviously very complex things).

I intend to take this to my MP and will enjoy watching the aftermath of their colossal [censored] up but does anyone else have experience of this type of mystical behaviour on the part of HMCTS or can advise a course of action?

Thanks in advance.

The latest saga of this shambolic saga rumbles on:

Today I learnt from the CMS that the HMCTS had held another Tribunal - but this time......without actually informing me!

Other than a letter asking me whether I wanted to keep my address confidential (received only a few weeks ago) that's the only piece of correspondence I've had from them. Zero chance to put my case forward whatsoever or even actually attend!

I think that this is a). incredulous & b). grossly incompetent.The Judge who dealt with the last Tribunal wasn't the sharpest tool in the box and managed to take 4 attempts to get the decision drafted correctly (simple typos and getting each party muddled up - obviously very complex things).

I intend to take this to my MP and will enjoy watching the aftermath of their colossal [censored] up but does anyone else have experience of this type of mystical behaviour on the part of HMCTS or can advise a course of action?

Thanks in advance.

Adamski,

Unfortunately my experience of the tribunal process has been much the same as yours so far (still ongoing - over a year now)! The 1st tier tribunal was very biased in favour of the receiving parent. The supposed judge basically seemed to act on my ex behalf rather than independently. She was a “Ms” so presumably a man hating divorcee herself.

Was the most recent tribunal a first tier tribunal or an upper tier tribunal decision?

If it was a first tier tribunal then you can appeal to the upper tier tribunal if you are unhappy with the decision.

1st thing to do is ask the 1st tier tribunal for a statement of reasons. Once you receive this you can then review the paperwork and, if it looks like there is an error, you write back to the 1st tier tribunal and ask for permission to appeal. From my research into this it seems like they almost always say no.

Don’t let that put you off. Next step is to write to the upper tier tribunal and ask them for permission to appeal. You need to have a valid reason such as the law has been applied incorrectly.

There is strict time limits on all of this though so jump on this straight away or you will lose your rights to appeal.

I genuinely don’t think your MP will get involved in a matter of the judiciary. They won’t have the power to over turn the decision. If you want to involve them that’s fine but please do so after you follow the ‘official’ appeal process.

I’m not an expert but I am going through the process just now so I may be able to help if you want to DM me?

I’m at the stage where I have successfully appealed 1st tier tribunal directly to upper tier tribunal and now awaiting a further tribunal. Probably have a few more months to wait.

In your email you say:

1st thing to do is ask the 1st tier tribunal for a statement of reasons.

How do you go about this, who do you write to?  I only have a letter from CMS saying decision made, no details about appeal.

there is good info here about appeals https://nacsa.co.uk/appeals-tribunals

This was a topic I posted about 5 years ago. I thought that I would now (2023) provide an update: it is not strictly topic related but may hopefully will give someone in a similar situation some hope.

Fast forward to the present day: my son is now 17 and has lived with me full time for the last 2 years. This followed a long saga of manipulation from his Mother whereby I didn't see him for about 18 months. Thankfully now he has seen through her behaviour and sees for what it was. He is now no longer in contact with her (this is unfortunate but not encouraged or discouraged from myself, it is just what he has chosen to do following his recent interactions with her). 

The thing to extract from this for anyone facing a similar situation is; children do grow up, hopefully will eventually see parental alienation for the ugly truth of what it is and they will not thank the abusing parent for it at all. Evidentially here, the CMS tribunal and the Family Court both made the wrong decision in this case which just facilitated the PA so please bear this in mind if you are facing a similar situation. Best of luck to you all.

@adamski28 Thank you for coming back to update on this, and glad that finally you got a good outcome.