in thinking the CSA have really outdone themselves this time?

[RalphGnu]

I've posted before re our problems with the CSA but they've excelled themselves in terms of utter twattery this time.

DF has a maintenance agreement where he pays a set amount through his salary each month, including arrears which will be paid off in eighteen months time.

DF has been working 12 hours a day, 6 days a week for the last month so that we will have the money to buy a car. This month, instead of taking out the agreed amount from his salary, the CSA have taken £997. Leaving us with £50 left over after rent/bills.

Cue a long and frustrating call to them resulting in. "Oops, don't know why that happened. No, you can't have it back. We'll knock it off the arrears you owe. Not our problem you can't afford to eat." Phone gets put down.

I guess this is more of a rant, if anything. First time in forever we would actually have money to spend on ourselves and it's gone. DF has worked all those hours and missed time with me and DS for nothing. DF and I have both cried. We know there's absolutely no point in taking it any further. Feel utterly defeated. Trying to keep it together for DS today but struggling.

Ah right .... I see. That changes things - a little. I can see the CSA were incompetent in tracking down your DP so far as a claim goes, but it's not their responsibility to inform DP that she was pregnant and/or had had a child. As you say, if she knew where his parents lived, and if they've lived there all this time then there was no excuse not to send him a letter (c/o them) asking to meet him. Even if she (mistakenly) thought he'd find out through the CSA then that's a hell of a hard faced way for him to discover something like that. And surely, even after 6 months or a year, when the CSA must have been back in touch with her to say they couldn't find him, you'd have thought that any decent person would have decided at that point to take matters back into their own hands and inform him (via parents' house if necessary) that he had a son. For one thing, the arrears issue would have been avoided, but for another he would have had the opportunity to build a relationship with his son. I can't accept that she looked for him at all ... the parents house would have been the first port of call. She wouldn't have had to reveal anything to them - just ask for his number or ask them to ask him to get in touch with her urgently.

OP - a relative of mine was suddenly thrust into a similar situation to you a few years ago. He was contacted out of the blue by the CSA and asked for 13 years worth of maintenance. Like your DF he had no idea he had a child and would never have abandoned his son or failed to contribute.
His ex-girlfriend had ended their relationship and married another man, it was only following their divorce and some suspicions that proved true that it all came to light.
My relative works in a reasonably high paid job and 13 years worth of maintenance arrears plus what they wanted in monthly payments meant he had to sell his house and move back with his parents to settle it.
It was no way his fault and now he knows about his son he has built a relationship with him and hopefully that will continue, but he has had to start again financially.
The boy even had the other man named as "father" on his birth certificate. I do believe that in cases where the mother has made no attempt to contact the father or where lies have been told about parentage, that arrears should not be due.
Obviously it's different when absent parents refuse to pay but not all parents are absent for the same reasons and from what I know the CSA only seems to work in black and white and cannot distinguish the varying shades of grey in between.
Good luck and I hope you manage to sort it out with minimum pain and fuss.

It took 11 yrs to find him?

And what was the mother doing to help in all this time?