To ask, how much are Mumsnetters owed in maintenence arrears?

[whothehellknows]

I know from previous threads that there are lots of us on MN with ExP's that do anything they can to avoid maintenence.

Last night in a fit of ire (because ExP who "can't afford to pay maintenence" told me about how he's looking to buy a fucking boat) I used the CMS calculator to double check how much he should have been paying all this time. In total, our kids have missed out on over £6000 in payments in two years. The number really shook me. I'm sitting here thinking how many times I've cried in desperation trying to make ends meet, worked overtime, sold my stuff and gone without to take care of my kids. What a difference that money could have made.

I know it's a broken record, but I can't help but think that lone parents would need a lot less help from the state if NRP's had to step up and pay for their kids.

So out of curiosity, more than anything else, I'm wondering how much mumsnetters have had to make do without-- I'm betting it's a mind blowing amount.

If your ex should be paying and isn't, how much has he managed to dodge?

If any of you can take it to court. Do it. I took my ex to court for unpaid child maintenance with a Judgment Summons (£100 application fee). Judge gave him a suspended committal order for 2 weeks imprisonment. He finally paid. Don't let them get away with it.

Kat, mine was insisting in the Family Courts he wasn't at all mentally ill therefore should be able to see the kids - whilst going on at the same time, a criminal case where he was being done for harassing me and someone else, where he was claiming under oath he should get off with it... as he was mentally ill so hadn't udnerstood that he was harassing us. I couldn't mention that, either in the Family Courts.

Then he got out of paying maintenance because he got Incapacity Ben for being mentally ill, whilst claiming in Family Courts he wasn't. That must be perjury and must have been on the record, surely? No-one gave a feck, though.

Christ almighty. That's proper madness.

What were the circumstances around that, Pinkballoon? Were you married, does he see the DC, did the CSA not succeed at all, was it a civil court application? I've been getting CM for a year now but am still owed £7k in arrears.

he reckoned he would pay €300 a month (spoke to his OWN solicitor)

so..... he never paid anything....soo....

so far €11700

So are we saying there is a right to sue? I thought there didn't usd to be and you HAD to leave it to the CMS even if they were useless and even if they chose to write it off.

If there IS a right to sue then you can do it on line and can enforce by theings like seizing their car, home etc

SoftKitty
Doesn't have contact with DC and we weren't married. It was maintenance for a 2.5 month period running up to when the CSA finally started looking at the application (you're probably aware that you only start getting maintenance when the CSA first look at the application, not when they receive the application). I had the money owing put into a financial order in the final hearing for DC. He didn't pay it. I took it back to court with a Judgment Summons application. Judge made a suspended committal order. The court did not like it at all (non payment).

In terms of money owed through the CSA, I think that you can go after this yourself in court, if the CSA can't do anything about it. Am sure that the CSA have told me this before. Check with them. They do have a special department who chase debtors (not that effectively). If it meant taking the work off them, perhaps they'd be quite happy?

Plus side:- I fully support this idea of a "name & shame" website.

Down side:- You'll need to be careful of malicious/revenge posts though.

Sorry, if my post puts a downer on this thread.

Our DD-his own flesh&blood is considering taking her DAD to court to try to get him to pay towards keeping her at uni. He has paid nothing-in spite of telling his solicitor that he would. My solicitor says he has never known a dad in our local area who has "allowed" it to get as far as this-says they usually can't stand the "shame" of the judgement/being in the press etc. Her dad reckons she won't go through with it I think. She's very private. Very reserved. Fingers crossed that she well and truly calls his bluff and goes for it-it's her call! (Her brother-he'd hang draw and quarter his dad from the town hall steps-& sell tickets to the show!) In many ways it makes.me.very sad that this is the relationship they have with him. In my world, if my dad is ok, then all is.well.with my world. But that's maybe because my dad has never, ever let me down!

Fingers crossed for your DD. She sounds like a tough cookie. Reserved and private people can be very strong. :)

In the region of £3000. If he were paying the full percentage of income, then you could probably multiply that by 10. He pays intermittently, just because it seems to amuse him to make me sweat. He hasn't paid for the last 2 months, and is threatening to cancel the airline tickets that he booked so I could take the kids to visit his elderly mother. He's just texted to tell my 11 year old dd this. I'm working 3 jobs to try to make up the shortfall. Every now and then he creates a fight and then withholds the maintenance in an attempt to blackmail me into capitulating to some new demand. The fucking abusive shit.
I'm still better off than him though, despite his morgage-free, tax-free life. My dds are wonderful...they love me and I love them. I don't need to tell them what he is like because he does that himself quite freely. I'm really tired, and worry a lot about losing the house though.

We are going to be really skint as pensioners. I would dearly love to pay into some form of pension to secure a decent standard of living when the time comes. But it won't happen, because as mums we are left with shelling out when our children have two parents who made them. Not an immaculate conception. So the nrp gets to live off his big fat pension because he had the money spare from not paying child support. Not paying has all sort of long term negative outcomes on women and children.
Maybe a dignified silent protest with the amount owed on signboards outside the Houses of Parliament should be held. #DAD = Don't Abandon Duty.

I've been tweeting and sharing-- has anybody else shared the thread on facebook or twitter, or asked their mates in similar positions to come and tell their story?

If you are tweeting, a short url for this thread is goo.gl/rjpleM

Still no feedback from MNHQ, though :(

Shared on Facebook. Don't do Twitter unfortunately.

Wish I had a magical penis that meant I didn't have to pay my dues.

PMSL @ "magicalpenis"

What you need is no conscience and hardly any love for your children.

We could simply dump our children with their fathers and not pay anything either.

Anyone can leave their children. Many people do give up their children for adoption and nobody makes them pay their keep.
What really is taking the piss is maintaining the image of a good dad, or acting Disney dad, and refuse to support your children as you would if they were living at home with you.

This makes me so furious!! And I say that as a 31 yr old woman whose father paid nothing towards us, I did get very angry in my early twenties and started looking up ways I could sue him!! How can the governmant just cut tax credits and do naff all about this. It should be made illegal for absent parent not to provide for their children. Sorry, rant over, feel for all of you picking up after your slack ex's.

I think if I thought I'd be awarded costs which the judge in Australia threatened my ex with if he continued to try and dictate that we stayed in oz then I would sue my worry is throwing good money after bad. He actually gave a£10,000 car to his mate to stop me having it that's how petty he's become in his old age.

All this makes me think we should scupper the entire system and just be awarded Legal Aid automatically, to pursue these men individually through the courts. I'm in a financial position (because of him) that means I couldn't even find £100 let alone the thousands I'd need. It would be cheaper to just give us all assistance directly, to pursue the errant "parents", and have done. As I am assuming whatever they're replacing CSA with will be equally toothless and inefficient.

The CSA/CMA is not worth the millions that are poured into it, such an inefficient dinosaur.

If they could at least start to make THAT more efficient, new IT systems, more training for staff on handling evasive clients, conflict resolution etc it would be a start. It's bloody ridiculous that you can pursue an ex for rightful payment, get as far as a CSA tribunal & the bastard just doesn't attend so the case gets thrown out!!!

It could be done via taxation, so your tax code is affected if you are a non resident parent. Its all done on percentages anyway, so if a NRP has 2 children then 20% of his wages is deducted via his tax code and then the RP gets that paid to them via the tax credit system. It would be using a system that is already in place, so would be far simpler and cheaper to implement than yet another new department that is not fit for purpose.

Yes you would get the ones who would go self employed or give up work altogether, but I feel that these would be in a minority as most people simply cant afford to do that.