[Solved] confused and need advice

Hi MrG and welcome 🙂

I'll answer your first two questions....

1. they do not take your ex or her partners income into account! Shocking huh! 😡

2. They're not interested in your outgoings, only in your income, the amount you pay would be reduced if you have other dependants.

There is a sticky at the top of the Child Maintenance section called "How the CSA calculate payments" it opens a link to an informative CSA leaflet which you may find helpful. You can also google the CSA calculator which will help you to work out roughly how much your payment will be.

Child maintenance and parental responsibility and right of contact are not linked in any way.

Because you werent married and your child was born before December 2003 you dont have PR, but you could have applied to the court to be granted this. You could have applied for a Contact Order at the same time. Whoever told you you had no rights and no chance of getting them was wrong.

There is nothing to stop you applying for PR and Contact now. Unfortunately Legal Aid is no longer available for Family Law cases, this stopped in April. If you go to the top of the Legal Eagle section you will find three stickys, two about representing yourself in court and one about the C100 form, which is the form you would need to apply for contact. You would need to submit a C100 and a C1 which is the form to apply for PR, you can submit them at the same time and there is a fee for this of £200. If you are on a low income you could be exempt from the fee, to claim for the exemption you would also need a form EX160a.

Finally, you will not be judged here, we all understand the distress and emotional strain involved 🙂

1) thats shocking yes
1) no other dependants
the scary thing is if it is just my net earnings it will be £160ish a month! after bills i only have £120 for food and entertainment as it is so not sure how they will get £160 from me.

I dont get how i can be financialy crippled as im a dad but not classed as a dad for visitation etc, that just boggles my mind. my first thought is to refuse to pay it unless i get access but aparently then i would be fined £1000 and it would be attached to my wage, this really seems so unbalanced and unjust it just cant be real!?

Im pretty much in a state of shock at the moment, i cant see how i can afford to keep my job and thats a situation no one should ever be in. i know i should be sleeping but i just cant i got to hope the CAB will be able to help me negotiate with the csa tomorrow

The only ray of light is that i can apply for contact, i was told i could only go through the courts for that if i could prove my ex was an unfit mother (( satan, beelzebub, she of many names) is/was a poor excuse for a human and a nasty piece of work but she is a good mother)

At the moment im looking at it like this, CSA cant charge me the full amount the calculator said or i would be unable to afford to pay my bills and eat, [censored] i wouldnt even be able to pay my bills or eat let alone both, and there is hope i may get to see my daughter again, that although scary (if its true i could of done this sooner how do i explain to her i didnt know? i was misinformed sounds so very lame)

i guess all that remains is to attempt sleep and tomorrow get my self to the CAB (thankfully its my day off, i will post again to say how i got on, i got to believe the csa will be resonable.

Hi MrG 🙂

You've probably found out by now that the CSAs middle name is inflexible. They really dont care what your outgoings are.

The only redress you may have is if you can contact the mother and come to arrangement with her to accept less. If you tell her that the amount the CSA want to take would make it not worth you working, as you wouldnt be able to afford to live. Then offer her a lesser amount and tell her she can either accept that, or you will become unemployed and she then wouldnt get anything. she might agree, theres a slim chance. :unsure:

Hi MrG - you said that your net income is 160 per month - is that what you actually get paid, or were you taking off bills etc? If that is your takehome figure, then you be assessed at the flat rate, which is 5 per week, and if your takehome pay is between 100 and 200 per week, then you are assessed at a reduced rate.

As you have found out, you cannot refuse to pay because access is being refused - maintenance and contact are not linked, so the contact issues would need to be dealt with as NJ has said above.

Hi mrgreaper.

Thank you for your post. I am William the Child Maintenance Options consultant.

I can see that Nannyjane and actd have already made you aware that the Child Support Agency (CSA) will not take in to account the earnings of your ex-partner or her new partner. The CSA will calculate your child maintenance payments based only on your income, which includes earnings, money from an occupational or personal pension and tax credits. They use the amount of income left after deductions such as Income Tax, National Insurance and any money paid into a personal pension scheme.

Generally the CSA would ask you to provide five wage slips if you are paid weekly or two if you are paid monthly or four weekly, they would then work out the average. For full information on how maintenance is calculated you may wish to contact the CSA directly. Their contact details can be found on the letter they have sent you, or this website http://www.gov.uk/child-support-agency provides their contact details.

If you are able to contact your ex-partner, it may be as Nannyjane has said that you are able to set up child maintenance between the two of you. This type of agreement is what we call a family-based arrangement. A family-based arrangement is not legally binding but it is flexible, so it allows you and your ex-partner to negotiate an agreement that suits you both. It can include money and other kinds of support, for example providing clothes or paying for activities for your daughter. A family-based arrangement is also completely private and it is made without involving the CSA or needing to disclose personal information to a third party.

Negotiation does play a big part in coming to an agreement. Collaborating to make and keep a child maintenance arrangement could be better for your daughter.

It has been shown that when both parents keep an active role in their child's life it can have a positive impact on their wellbeing and development.

If you feel that mediation may help you in setting up a child maintenance arrangement and resolving the issues you have over contact. The following organisations are experts in that area:

Centre for Separated Families provides advice and support to parents and other people experiencing family separation. Their website is: http://www.separatedfamilies.info

National Family Mediation has a network of local not for profit family mediation services in England and Wales which offer help to couples, married or unmarried, who are separated or divorced. Their website address is: http://www.nfm.org.uk.

Alternatively to help you with a family-based arrangement, we have tools, guides, a maintenance calculator and a family-based arrangement form on our website that you may find useful. You can find these at: http://www.cmoptions.org/en/calculator/calculator.asp.

We also have a sorting out separation web-app that offers help and support to separated families. It may also help you, if you are also worried about your financial situation. The link is: http://www.dad.info/divorce-and-separation/sorting-out-separation.

To find out more about how Child Maintenance Options can help you visit cmoptions.org or call us free on 0800 988 0988 between 8am and 8pm Monday to Friday or 9am and 4pm on Saturday.