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Hi all,
I am writing to ask if anybody has any ideas on how to reduce payments to the csa?
In October of last year I received a letter from the CSA stating that I owed £18K in arrears for child maintainence for my daughter. She is now 14 years old. Havng done the maths, this assumes that I should be paying £24 per week for every week of her life.
For the first 5 years of her life we all lived together as a family, thereafter she came to stay with me most weekends.
For the last 8 years i have been with my current partner and together we have 2 young children (7 & 5) and my daughter has stayed with us for many weekends.
The money is being taken direct from my wages at a rate of £340+ per month. I was pad in November and then again early in December due to the Christmas holidays. As such I was down by nearly £700 in the space of 3 weeks at the worst time of the year. as you can imagne I am now struggling like mad, trying to make ends meet.
This whole episode only came about as my ex-partner lost 1 job, signed on and was then told that the job centre was putting a claim in on her behalf. Thereafter she found a new job, within the space of a month.
My ex partner didn't ever ask for a penny, as she knew that if anything was needed i would try my best to provide.
Are there options available in order to reduce the payments?
Thank you in advance for any help you may be able to provide.
Mark
Hi there and welcome 🙂
It seems to me that the CSA are after as many scalps as possible before the system changes...The number of distraught Dads that are coming here to ask for advice on the same thing is staggering! The CSA dont listen and it appears to me are completely inflexible even when they are wrong! My advice to you would be to gather all the paperwork and go and see your MP and ask for his help. They will listen to him/her and you are much more likely to get heard.
Good luck with it all 🙂
This does sound appalling as your ex isn`t after every penny she can get - you both seem to have come to a reasonable understanding of sharing expenses. I agree with NJ above about contacting your MP, but I'd also ask if you ex can close the case on the basis that the claim was only needed for a month. Otherwise, another option might be for your ex to pay the money into the CSA on your behalf - she'll get the money back immediately from the CSA as they have to be collecting it for her, not because she is on benefits.
Hi actd & Nannyjane
thank you both for your kind words and advice.
This is is something I will deffo look into.
Mark
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