AIBU to be astounded that CSA have chosen to write off my kid's maintenance debt?

[wantmorenow]

Just that. Letter out of the blue that they have decided that the debt is permanently unrecoverable so THEY have chosen to write it off!

It's not their fucking money! It's mine and my kids!

Have been on hold for 20 minutes and no luck of getting through on to the CSA 'helpline'.

Can they really do this?

I agree on principal it shouldn't be dropped. That sends a message to non-resident parents that they can avoid paying, and it will all be forgotten about.

I agree the money is for your children, not you. But you could put it in a savings account for them/use it for further education.

Good for you Paul Hollywood
I can't believe pp are saying "kids are grown now you don't need it!"
Bringing up children alone on 1 income affects your life LONG TERM! It's affected my pension (working short hours so I could do pick up and drop off from after school club) my earning potential, my credit from being so broke I couldn't pay my credit card off, my ability to be able to afford further education, ability to help fund dc through college, things I could afford to help dc with.
On and on.
What other debts are they writing off now? On the one hand they stiff women in their 50s wrt pensions (a few years back) and then give deadbeat dads a free fucking pass. Will this even affect the dads credit file? ? Outrageous.

My DSis had one of these letters. Debt written off as the CSA couldn’t find her ex and so the thousands of £ not collected has been written off. DSis rang them and told them a simple Facebook search found the ex was living in Dorset. Too late to chase the money now - apparently.

Can you ask them to transfer it to cms (child maintenance service)
My ex owed 5k which they transferred to cms where he ran up another 5k but the new service means we both have to pay for their involvement and they charge him for every letter they send chasing him up and in my case for bailiffs, court cases etc and csa don’t care about your money but they sure as hell care about what they’re owed and I’m now getting paid the arrears

It is the OP's money. She supported their kids financially on her own without him contributing, it's absolutely her money.

My parents, divorced for over 30 years (though dad remarried ten years ago), recently got the same letter too. I'm 37, and we all had a good chuckle about it.

@CanILeavenowplease I haven't said she shouldn't be reimbursed. The father still owes a debt. It's just not the CSA's job to collect it anymore now the children are adults.

CanILeavenowplease and emmeline333 thank you.

It absolutely my money. I still have a mortgage and loans. He does not. The fact he not pay support is entirely a factor in this inequality now. I still house my eldest and my two younger children who are minors. I have little to no pension and my career ended the day I became the default parent with an AWOL father.

The letter kindly said that I did not need to take further action as it was already decided. I would happily withhold consent and signature but they state it is done without my input.

Thanks to those saying I can appeal, I can't find out figures as the phone line is a joke and doesn't get answered.

Find out how much it is. Appeal and then go to the ombudsman.
To fuck should he be allowed to get away with this

I haven't said she shouldn't be reimbursed. The father still owes a debt. It's just not the CSA's job to collect it anymore now the children are adults.

The CSA wiping the debt does wipe his liability though.

They don't need to actively collect it, but if they leave it on their books (probably ignoring it as they have done for donkeys years) it can at least be included in an estate if someone dies or can be chased in other ways.

The CSA wiping these debts basically excuses the non payers forever.

It's not the CSAs money, but it's not your money either. It's your children's.

No. It’s OPs. The children did not finance their own upbringing in the absence of contribution from their father. OP did. She paid his half of the costs of raising them. He owes her this money.

The fact they are going down this road sums up the attitude of numerous governments to non payment of maintenance.

When my grandparents took us in ordered maintenance was included as income for benefits. So because they were supposed to get £64 a week from my father their benefits were reduced by £64 a week despite the CSA not getting a penny. The government chose to deal with that by not including maintenance in benefits calculations.

There are endless powers available to the CSA (and now CMS) including driving license removal, charges on property, taking money direct from bank accounts and even prison. They have the powers. There is just no political will to chase it.

Put one of the many benefit fraud chasing teams onto these historic cases and I bet they'd pull in thousands very quickly.

I received mine a couple of months ago. It was worded in a really infuriating way as well the twats.
CSA haven't existed for a while now though, so I don't know if the number you've called will be any use at all.

Which is why it might be worth seeing if there's any way to purchase the debt from them and pursue it privately, @lyralalala

Ultimately they're just a debt collection agency. If they decide that a debt is no longer worth pursuing, they can either wipe it or sell the debt. In this case they're trying to wipe it. If the OP doesn't want that to happen, then I think the only way is to see if it can be purchased and chased by another debt collection agency.

It's outrageous and just another reason why child maintenance should be a cumulative life-long debt, not extinguishable by bankruptcy or death.

Maintenance payments due (accrued debt) should also be subject to a reasonable minimum whether or not it is currently affordable because the non resident parent is unemployed/"self-employed but not earning much"/ a SAHD to his new partner's children. The non resident parent's financial circumstances will fluctuate through-out their life but at present they just need to manipulate their income to be low until the kids no longer qualify for maintenance support. Making it a life-long debt would remove the incentive to use avoidance/minimising techniques. Pay less now if your financial circumstances appear to indicate that you can't afford more at this time but any shortfall of a reasonable minimum should accrue as still owed just like with any other cost in life.

In way too many cases the non-resident parent gets to manipulate the situation regarding their income until the children are adults and then in theory the resident parent no longer qualifies for receiving the contribution towards their financial upbringing.

End result ? Too many women scrimping/going without themselves to try and reduce the financial impact on the children. The kids may have reached adult age but the resident parent who had to make do without the appropriate contribution from the non-resident parent for so many years is left with a life long deficit in overall income which will impact on their quality of life/ability to provide for themselves in retirement. If the resident parent used their own additional labours/funds to make up the shortfall in contribution from the non-resident parent then they should still be owed that money that should have been paid over to the by the non-resident parent right up to the point the non-resident parent dies and it should then be taken from any assets they have at death.

The simplest form of securing the debt is for there to be a charge over any property the non-resident parent may own, although this won't be possible for non home-owners naturally.

There's also the option of not processing any passport application of a non-resident parent with arrears of child maintenance. If you can't afford to support your children you can't afford trips abroad (and no arguing that someone else is paying for the passport/trip abroad or that's is essential for visiting sick/dying relatives overseas) and NRP's should be embarrassed to admit they can't get a passport to travel because of their arrears with child maintenance responsibilities.

CMS are blunt toothed/barely fit for purpose.

If the majority of Resident Parents were male, would this matter have been given more thought as to fairness ?

Anyone who has commented on this thread in support of the debt being cancelled, hang your head in shame ! Where do you think the money came from to support the children whilst the NRP didn't pay what they should have done ? OP is owed the money, can't you see that ?

As disgusting as it is (state-sanctioned misogyny), there isn't anything more OP can do. There was nothing more I could have done, I did their job for them snooping around and gathering information then passing it onto them.
There's no point trying to reclaim the claim, it won't be successful in a civil court. It's shit.

Which is why it might be worth seeing if there's any way to purchase the debt from them and pursue it privately, @lyralalala**

Ultimately they're just a debt collection agency. If they decide that a debt is no longer worth pursuing, they can either wipe it or sell the debt. In this case they're trying to wipe it. If the OP doesn't want that to happen, then I think the only way is to see if it can be purchased and chased by another debt collection agency.

Unless they agree to transfer it to CMS there is nothing the OP can do about this.

It harms no-one to leave the debt where it is. It doesn't make any difference to CSA/CMS to have the debt on record and left in storage.

Previously it couldn't be written off, it couldn't be inluded on a bankruptcy and, if previously unrecoverable, stayed on record in case it could be included in an estate. There is absolutely no reason to change that - unless you want to be able to stop publishing the figures of unrecovered money each year...

What the government bill has done is allow the agency who have failed to deal with the debt to wipe it off, without any consultation or consent from the person they had a state duty to chase it for, and make it unrecoverable.

This has just happened to a friend of mine, whose youngest is a preteen.

Utterly disgraceful behaviour, and shouldn't be influenced by age of the 'children'.

The CSA are basically just telling NRPs who want to dodge maintenance that they just have to wait until their arrears hit a certain point to have it wiped and forgotten. Would this shit fly if more RP were male?!

Bit baffled at those who think it's AOK for man who avoids contributing to his kids food clothes housing etc for 18 years should have it written off.

It's a kind of polsnski approach and it's bollocks.

OP in with you that's terrible.

Sorry genuinely confused. Are people suggesting I should pay CSA to chase the money owed to me that failed to recover when they had the powers to do so?

His job is driving for a living - one threat of removing his license would have made him pay up the debt from his inheritance in a few minutes. From the bank account (that they know he has because they can access these records and know how much he received from his Mum's estate because that too is a matter of Government record).

They choose not to enforce it and to hell with the consequences for me. kids and many other sin similar situations.

It's not even the money in my case because I'm sure it's a small amount, it's the casual indifference to the rights of children, resident parents (usually women) and to social justice.

The CSA doesn't exist anymore.

Although despite them ceasing to exist several years ago, which was the reason behind them not taking on any new cases, before closing for good, it's funny how they've still managed to send these letters out.

God the government really likes to let utter bastards get away with being shits to their children, doesn't it?. Where is the outrage about this when right wingers are moaning about single mums claiming benefits? If someone gets an inheritance it has to go through legal channels, CSA should be able to get debts paid.

The cost of raising children without this cash may mean the resident, responsible parent needs benefits both when kids are little and later in life too - you'd think they'd care about that at least.

Is there a petition to sign on this?

Although despite them ceasing to exist several years ago, which was the reason behind them not taking on any new cases, before closing for good, it's funny how they've still managed to send these letters out.

There is still a department within CMS who deal with CSA cases.

Instead of passing these cases over to CMS they are writing them off which means the unrecovered monies don't get added to CMS's unrecovered monies (which are as disgraceful as CSA's!).

I imagine similar will happen when they scrap CMS one day for another alternative. Its a good way of hiding the scale of the scandal.

It's the casual indifference to the rights of children, resident parents (usually women) and to social justice.

Agreed. It's appalling and shameful.