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Hi
I'm in a bit of a situation and I was wonder if you can help.
I have a court order stating that I am responcible for all travel arrangments for contact with my little girl. This was agreed in court after discussion with Caffcass and my daughters mum, my solicitor, and an open letter to the court from my ex, stating that she could not do the travelling due to work commitments, time with the rest of her family and not have access to a vehical. In the open letter the offer was made to reduce my maintence payments, in light of, I'm having to spen around £150 per month on fuel. (Nottingham to Gloucester) The judge said for us to sort that out ourselves, and agreed with the proposal.
I was put over a barrel in court and had to agree to this, the judge said "I cant make her do the travelling"?
Since then I wrote to my daughters mum and copied in CAffcass and my soliciter, They agreed that the amount I proposed was accepable, though no responce from my ex.
I reduced my payment that I made directly to my ex as agreed through the CSA.
Now she has gone directly to the CSA, and they say I have to pay the full amount, through them, and I've now got 3 months of back payments to pay. They said that they dont take any corut order in to account in regards to payments.
What can I do now, do I risk going back to court, again at my expence, or do i just live with it? Though I must say its getting really expensive.
What can I do?
Kind regards
Wayne
Assuming that the court order is more than a year old, unfortunately the CSA are correct. You can deduct reasonable travel expenses in excess of £15 per week from your takehome pay for the calculation, which means that you could deduct about £90 per month from takehome pay - unfortunately, this is only going to reduce the maintenance by about £14 per month, but it's better than nothing at all. I'd speak to the CSA about this - you will need to submit a variation for this reduction.
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