as the wife of the NRP, to hate the CSA

[CoolTumble]

We pay on time every month. DH has done since his ex cheated on him when dsd was 2, through a private agreement.

I meet dh 2 years later and 8 years later,when I fell pregnant she went straight to the CSA and because dh was doing a little bit of overtime to buy things for new baby it pushed our payments up. Even when dh stopped doing the overtime, they wouldn't reduce it even though he could prove he was no longer doing overtime. Had to go through a tribunal to reduce the payments to the correct amount.

Now I'm pregnant again and she has gone to the CSA again and our payments have increased again based on a once off bonus dh recieved before christmas, that has never happened before and never will. The increase hs also been backdated to last year which means we are in arrears, dispite paying every month. The CSA want the money straight away and will not let us pay it over a period of time. So we cannot afford to go on the very cheap haven holiday we have booked in may as we will have no spending money. This would have been dd's first holiday and I'm so upset I could cry.

And even when dc2 is born, our payments will not be reduced by a fair amount as my second child is only entitled to 5% of dh's wages which I think is disgusting.

Hate the CSA

I'm so sorry to hear that you can't go on the holiday now, you must be feeling very low

Do get it sorted, neither CSA nor you DH's ex should get away with treating you (and effectively your children) so unfairly.

Not wanting to hi-jack, but gobsmackedetal why do you say that "YOUR personal income cannot be taken into account". The CSA have my employment/wage details and my DH's payments are very much dependent on this. They compare both our wages to assess what proportion of the rent/council tax we are each responsible for.

They also demanded that I declare any savings I had (but were not in the slightest bit interest in the HUGE amount of debt that I had before even meeting DH)

Purple, was the CSA involved before 2003? Because I think this was when they "fixed" things a little bit, although they're still f*wits.
AFAIC, NRP's spouse's/partner's income does not count anymore for maintenance, although you might have your CTC or even CB reduced

If your case was settled after 2003 (sept I think) then have a look at their site and investigating, your might be getting diddled out of money you could be spending on dc AND dsc in more constructive ways.

It has been about three years since I last had to deal with it all, so forgive me if this info is invalid.

If there was a CSA case open prior to 2003, then the NRP's partner's income was taken into account. After 2003, it changed to just the NRP's income being factored in, as gobsmackedetal posted.

Unfortunately though the only way to get a case transferred over to the new CSA system is if the RP closes down the existing old case and opens it up again after a certain number of weeks. Funnily enough, RP's aren't too keen on that idea if it's going to reduce their payments

As for the OP, I agree with some of the other posts. People see someone complaining about the CSA and paying maintenance, even if it is down to an error from the CSA's part, and jump on the "Get over it, they had kids before you met them, pay for them" bandwagon.

There is no way you should have had to go to a tribunal to get your partner's payments reduced when his overtime reduced. That is terrible. Overtime adjusting the amount happens alot. All you have to do is wait 3 months and ask for a new assessment to be done, with 3 months of wage slips on the new amount minus overtime.

I also wasn't aware that you could notify the CSA of a one off wage increase and they increase the amount paid for one month. If you ring them and say "My income has increased this month" I thought their systems could only handle changing the amount for the coming months too. They're systems can't handle the simplest of things, let alone income changing month to month.

Basing your partner's income for a period of time on a one off increased wage slip is wrong. Sadly I'm not surprised they do it, because they can't organise a knees up in a brewery. I would get NACSA involved too.

As for your original question, no I don't think you're being unreasonable at all.

Oh yes, forgot to add, the CSA take into account the tax credits received in the household for the NRP and their partner's children too. That's the only "income" of the NRP partner they can include on the new system.

really they take into account NRP household tax credits?

Cos I know nrp g/f gets tax credits - they get the discount for her ds - but the tax credits are not included in his income - I know cos I have seen his p45 so know the csa money is correct on that alone.. nto interested in his tax credits or his g/f credit

I haven't read the whole thread as I'm too impatient to post!

OP I think you are very very brave to post on Mumsnet, as a stepmother, about the CSA, in AIBU!!! Respect to you! I see that the old chestnuts came out of the woodwork very early on in the thread.

Basically the CSA are complete bastards when it comes to second families. We were on the old original system and it was a complete nightmare. DH's income was highly variable as he worked on a contract basis and the CSA just couldn't keep up so we ended up for weeks and months paying massive assessments based on one week's pay with overtime that we just couldn't afford. Arrears built up through mistake after mistake after mistake. I feel like crying just thinking about it tbh.

Whoever said they pick on the easy targets is absolutely right. We only managed to get out of the nightmare of the lump sum demands by borrowing money from family to pay off arrears that as far as we were concerned were never due in the first place because they were based on completely inaccurate income assessments.

You could try NACSA, but really we didn't find them much use because the weight of the so-called "law" is right behind the CSA and we just didn't have enough of the concrete proof (written agreements, written receipts, etc.) that was needed to fight the case.

Oh and yes, the CSA certainly takes into account tax credits received for children of the second family. It's a win win for the PWC - hers are disregarded giving her an artificially low income. Those received by the second family are added to their income and thereby taken away from the child in question. Nice.

Best of luck to you and I do hope you get it sorted out.

I have realised why the csa havn't taken into account tax credits - in my case my ex contacted the csa and then refused to give any details, therefore they just went through his employer and got details of his working income - and take the money straight from source.

So if you refuse to tell the csa any information and get them to go through your employer - you don't get your tax credit income for the second family taken into account.

that sounds about right Ivy - another example of how those who co-operate with the CSA get squeezed for every penny (and more) while those who don't give a shit get off lightly

DS1's father doesn't have to pay the full £45 for him because he is living with a woman and her kids, although for one of them she gets maintenance payments from the father.
So instead he pays £15 a week.

Tell me how that is fair?

CSA sometimes consider second families more than first families, this being a prime example.

The bizare thing in my case was - it wasn't me who contacted the csa - it was the nrp who contacted them. the csa then houneded me to get detials and try to get the nrp to co-operate!

They normally always include Child Tax Credits and they include all Working Tax Credits if the NRP earns more than their partner, half of them if the NRP and partner earn the same and no Working Tax Credits if the NRP earns less than the Partner.

So say for example, I went back to work (earning slightly less than my H) and got working tax credits to pay towards my childcare fees ... the CSA would then take 15% of that back off of us, to give to the Resident Parent.

Yes, sometimes it works the other way and the RP is penalised (like in the case of a NRP taking on step children and getting a reduction for them). I accept that.