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?

You know where I am xx

Over £60,000. My eldest is disabled so making up the shortfall due to his neglect has proved impossible.

He owns his own road haulage business but the CSA cannot find a current address for him. MP involved.

Years of stress and hardship and now it is in the hands of Criminal Compliance.

I hope one day he will pay what he owes so I can pass it on to my children.

Dont get me started. ExH used to give minimal regularly until recently. he's thrown his Toys out the pram and his adult way of dealing with things is to ignore everybody. Including his own kids.

Paying CM regular should be made law to any Absent Mother / Father. (after proof of course). See how they wriggle out of it then!

This is what I was told by my ex. "I shouldn't have to give you any £. The Government pays for you".

Yes it does, and you need to stop being such a knob and give some of it back to the government!
We have a number of appointments coming up with Ds that we need to focus on. THEN I'm pursuing it again.

I try not to think about it when we muddle through and I can get her a new top every three months or a pair of much coveted converse on the catalogue but now she needs new glasses and I can't afford to put the extra towards the "cool" ones I'm reminded that he probably owes her twenty grand.

So, is the change from CSA to CMS going to make any actual difference for resident parents? Will the fact that they charge mean that they can put the money towards actually pinning the non-paying parents down?

Actually I found the cms did more in a week than the CSa had done in years. It was £20 well spent :)

I'm just wondering if an online petition to the government might be better than twitter ? Just a thought.

That's good news, wannabe!

Conference, an online petition to the government is a good idea, if we can work out what steps we want them to take to change the situation.

In general, I'd like to see an attitude shift towards NRPs who don't support their children, and for non-payment of maintenance to be fully recognized as financial abuse.

Yes, must admit last month was horrendous as we're on (one) minimum wage and suddenly there was £90 on a school trip they both went on - and a letter home a couple of days later to ask for £15 for another school trip for one of the boys. Plus the usual hair-cuts, new shoes, and that all coinciding with one boy's birthday. ("Father" sent no present and a card full of insane scrawlings, so scary I burned it before the kid saw it). Meanwhile, I see on FB, ex holidaying abroad (as usual) and buying new bikes, etc. (The same son with the June birthday outgrew his old bike finally this year and only has one at all because his adult, oldest brother gave him his old one...) Kids usually get 2 days on a cheap camp site as their annual holiday. Ex travels the world.

It is odd how easily I can find the ex's address - he has never moved and is easily searchable online - and how easily I can see what he does on FB etc and yet the CSA don't seem to have the internet, or any way of finding people that an under-one-second internet search by an armchair detective can easily locate.

I genuinely have no idea how all your ExP's sleep at night. to all of you not only doing the hardest job in the world alone but without the financial support your children need.

Think it would be good if the government introduced legislation to make maintenance payments an automatic child 'right' that kicked in as soon as the parents had been notified of the child's birth/their parentage (some sort of proof system would be needed, maybe a registered delivery letter, like when you get served a summons, and option to take DNA test if parentage was in dispute).

Then the time maintenance was payable for would automatically rack up starting when they'd been notified, so you wouldn't have to open a claim, and amounts could be estimated if NRP didn't give income details, like they are if you try and get out of paying tax. Just like tax the amount payable would keep accruing regardless of how much the NRP changed addresses or left it without paying and you'd be able to choose how/when you chased them up for payment.

There could be an agency similar to a (well run, not morally bankrupt) debt collection agency which you could use if NRP didn't pay and they'd add their costs onto money to be recovered, and they could do court action to give NRP CCJs or even seize assets if appropriate. Would completely change the expectation on an NRP if maintenance was as 'automatic' as tax and would mean even if you couldn't find them for years they'd still owe the backpay so far more incentive to sort it early rather than run. But any good NRPs wouldn't get shafted as, just like tax, maintenance would be set amounts depending on income so should be affordable to all.

Not me but a family members is owed over 300K by her ex.
He is very wealthy and has a very successful business but made it clear that if she chose to leave him she would get nothing and he has stuck to that.

She has struggled a relied on family support to get by since she left him a few years ago.
The csa have been useless as despite telling him he has to pay X amout each month they also tell her they can't do anything to enforce it.

I think one solution would be to fix a charge on their homes if they're home owners. (And many of these 'broke' men do seem to hold on to their houses or get new ones after a split). So if they die/want to move, then you are automatically paid a sum that would be commensurate to at least part of the cost of bringing the child/ren up. So essentially, they can "move on" but their kids OWN their house. It would be a wake up call to subsequent partners to deadbeat dads, as well - as they or their kids could never collect - the man's entire property would be their children's from day one. If you lose a court case a charge can be put against your house, on the deeds or something.

I also think there should be no statute of limitations. It will now always have cost me hundreds of thousands of pounds to bring up these kids. If they were both 18 and had left home - I'd still never be where I would have been financially, if he had paid for half of what they needed. It is not just the kids that need the money but if a resident parent/their new partner has stumped up for a couple of decades, then they too need compensating.

Also dunno what it is now but I was told if my ex had been on a benefit that wasn't Incapacity, he'd have had to pay £5 a week per child. Now that is insulting and derisory. But... it would have been something. However, maybe their benefits should be docked in half or something so radical they couldn't survive without getting a job. That would be a disincentive for men signing on, rather than paying out.

I had a friend who used to be incensed her husband paid for his (adopted) kids from a failed first marriage. But she still could go ahead and buy a house with him, and although he did pay it was reluctantly. I always felt it was unfair of my friend not to see that those kids were his responsibility, even if he had moved on.

Pitpartay, that would be ideal.

I moved from the CSA to CMS in March. I'm still waiting for my first payment which was due on the first of June.

I paid them back in November last year

And that is while having the details. They just couldn't get hold of XH apparently to ask we he hadn't paid. He had a problem with his car apparently so it'll be early next month now to give the poor soul a chance.

A chance to leave his job again more like.

Child support is seen as an optional payment.

BrowersBlues

Am I wrong in thinking that Australia and New Zealand have got it nailed? I remember when I lived in Australia over 20 years ago hearing people say that they couldn't avoid the CSA or whatever the equivalent is. I also knew of someone in the States that got his passport confiscated over non-payment of maintenance.

I can't speak for Australia, but in NZ child support is collected by the Inland Revenue.

They have the ability to collect child support by seizing property or placing charges over it, or by having people arrested at the border if they try to leave without paying.

Orders for "maintenance" (which is separate from child support) can't be enforced more than (I think) 3 years after the order is made.

A question: in the UK, does maintenance = money for child support, or is it something else as well?

I am horrified by the figures being quoted on this thread.

In the UK maintenance = child support. There isn't really any alimony here, as far as I can see.

This is going back a bit, but £15k over 6 years from 1982 to 1988, and that's only counting up til 13th birthday, so another £12k til 18th birthday/still at school, never mind time spent at university when a reasonable parent would have contributed something, or the fact that it might have gone up a bit over the years. So let's say £30k plus over 20 years compound interest...

He went bankrupt to avoid paying anything, which could be done then, don't know if it can be done now.

Bastard.

A lot of the enforcement techniques advocated on here exist already but have been little used by CMS/CSA - they can apply to Magistrates for Prison and/or disqualification from holding a driving licence - they just don't.

In my Sister's case, she alerted them to the fact her exH's house was for sale, and they promised to place a charge on it. They failed to do the paperwork properly and in time so that didn't happen.

As for people advocating a draconian regime for all - I want the authorities to go after these loser (mostly) Dads, but as a NRP who pays properly, I'd prefer to be left alone, thanks. I think too often attempts at enforcement in this country result in inconvenience for the law abiding, whilst the rest just carry on ignoring the law.

Toadinthehole - The CSA/CMS is only concerned with Child Support, but Courts can order a spouse to pay "spousal maintenance" - some footballers wives for example, who gave up their career and perhaps helped their DH to battle alcohol drugs etc to keep his career on track, have been awarded an income and even a percentage of all future earnings.

My exDW tried to get spousal maintenance even though we had no kids and she was self-employed earning (albeit not much).

whothehellknows

Spousal maintenance (alimony in US) is alive and well in the UK :) - although not common.

Dd is 11 tomorrow. She sees her father eow. He has paid about £1000 in total in 10+ years. All collected directly from his wages. He left his job shortly after and has avoided working since. I say avoided working but actually works cash in hand or fucks about being a student. The last course he did was an art course.

Because obviously that will be helpful getting a job in a deprived northern town.

Worse than the not paying though was the sheer head fuckery I had to go through when he did eventually get stopped monies frim his wages. At the time dd was about 18 months old and I working part time in a nmw job so qualified for about £20 a week housing benefit based on him paying £25 a week.

Because he wouldn't pay until it was stopped from his wages and the csa were recivering arrears instead of £100 every 4 weeks I got £200 every 4 weeks.

When I had to show my bank accounts to reapply for hb they said I had been overpaid hb and I owed them money. They wouldn't accept that this was arrears from when he hadn't paid. The csa wouldn't write and explain what had happened and why. Hb people wouldn't contact csa.

It was a fucking nightmare. I was being screwed over by the lot of them. I could weep now thinking about it.

And ex still gets to be disney dad. And because he has a relationship with her the whole fucking world thinks he is a hero. I am being unreasonable because we moved 8 miles and 2 buses away and have said that come September he can collect her himself. I have a car so its easy or me to get her to his.

They can all fuck the fuck off.

Well, ds1 is 9, and we haven't had maintenance from his dad since he was about 6 months old... So quite a lot!!