Fuck a duck CM not registered

[in2minds]

All hell has broke loose her.
Short story, I renew tax credits last week and give them the new providers details.
Today I get a phone call asking for old providers details, she is a fruit loop I sacked because her boyfriend hurt my child (child took 12 months to tell me, not a mark at the time, police not interested).
So I give them the ofstead number she gave me, she never registered
Where do I stand ? I'm guessing at best I have to pay back a massive amount of money ?

Don't you have any normal CMs in your area?
You seem to have been stung twice .
Maybe third time lucky, at least you know what to look for this time and will find your ideal provider.
At least you have an electronic trail for your payments and this 'CM' will soon get a visit from the tax man.

You may have to take her to Small Claims Court.
I'd be getting legal advice now I think.

From what I can gather I am going to get stung twice once for over payment with the tax credits and there is a possibility I may be responsible for paying her tax and ni (according to somebody on another forum) because even though she was working for other people too, I was her employer - does that sound right ?
AV - when you say legal advice do you mean CAB or a solicitor, we're living hand to mouth right now and without TC there's no point in me working.

WTC5 (pdf) page 11 and 12. Not good reading I'm afraid, as to me it does look as though you will need to repay any overpayment of Childcare Element of WTC.

For now I would suggest that you gather together as much evidence as you can to show that you did as much you could to check the persons registration. If tax credits demands the payments back, then at that point you should get legal advice (solicitor) to see if there is any claim against the provider.

If you are living hand to mouth right now, how are you able to consider private schooling in September? Mumsnet: Primary Education - Small prep school. Not that your finances are any of my business of course, but I am wondering how you can claim Tax Credits and be considering sending your children to private school.

Because the grandparents pay some of the school fees as it says in the post and I will be working in a new role where i shall be claiming working tax credits again which will pay the for the after school club at the private school which the state schools do not offer at all.
If they stop the claim which it doesn't seem they would though I might as well go on the dole.

You are not her employer if she was a "childminder" working in her own home. They are self employed. If she was working in your home as a nanny then youwould be liable for tax and NI etc.

No she had them at her house which is how the "incident" happened, her boyfriend wouldn't have got through my front door.
Thank god I paid by bacs, I can imagine without proof I'd have been stuffed am hoping they now hand her a tax bill and horse whip him

in2minds, IMO, No that doesn't sound right, when you say she works 'for' other people, do you mean she cares for other peoples children in 'her' home or 'theirs'?. If in her own home and she is claiming to be a childminder then she would be 'self-employed' - all childminders are 'self-employed' and in your case, you would have been your childminders 'client' not 'employer'. Nannies (who care for children in the childs home) are employed.

Thanks for the explanation. My grandmother paid for my private schooling, until my parents divorced - then I had to go to state school. If it helps with school choices, look at uniform costs - my parents found the cost of uniform very expensive at prep school (my grandmother only paid the tuition fees, not extras like uniform, school trips, school meals etc).

If tax credits decides to reclaim money, surely they will stop any current claims... anyone know if that is what happens? Seems odd to me that they would claim with one hand while giving with the other.

It's a right mess isn't it. I think you should try to convince tax credits that you did everything you could to confirm the childcare provider was correctly registered.

You see normally uniform costs etc really aren't a problem, providing I am a) working b) not having to pay back £4,800 I've worked out will be the over payment and c) tax credits pay the after school club.

By all account they do give with one hand and take with the other, my friend (i've spent most of the night on the phone to people trying to get their experiences) owes them £6,000 from overpayment and she has point blank refused to pay because she believes it was their error and they continue to pay her the correct amount so fingers crossed.

As for the childminder, it would appear from gossip that she minds them at somebody else's house and they split the money paid by the parents, neither of them are registered and I believe my children were taken to that house regularly.
Her references were made up, she's not registered there must be a case for gaining money by deception wouldn't you say ?

I suppose it is like any debt, you refuse to pay it in lump sum and agree repayment terms. Interesting to know you that you have chatted with someone in the position of paying back a disputed overpayment - I'm sure their experience will be invaluable. It must be of help to know someone who is going through a similar problem.

The childminder should be reported to Ofsted, along with the other person at whose home the care is taking place.
Not sure if the police would be interested - they might be due to fraud and child protection issues.

Well not so valuable she couldn't care less, I will loose sleep over this, oh well

I was supposedly overpaid tax credits incidentally after the birth of my son. To this day I don;t know how, I know that payments went up (but I expected that with a baby under 12 months) and my dh was just starting a business so earning very little that financial year. However they reckoned I had been overpaid quite a large amount.

What happened was that they suspended my current payments for 2 years until my debt was paid off via not being paid what I should get.

Did you employ her as a nanny or a childminder?

If childminder, then when you went to her home you would have seen her valid certificates displayed as she has to by law. You would also have a signed contract.

However if she was voluntary registered, it suggests she was a nanny. Did she ever live in or work at your home? If so, its not just tax credits you will owe but NI and tax.

I cant see tax credits agreeing to write off the payments as its your responsibility to check the provider and ensure they hold valid registrations. Taking legal action may also not get you very far if you failed to check these important details.

"You see normally uniform costs etc really aren't a problem"
Beware... prep schools do not usually have uniforms you can buy from any old supermarket.... round here summer dresses are £34 each and blazers £89... this is for 4 yos.

OMG

No insurance, prob no CRB check for her and her BF and your children in house that has not been registered.

Contact ofsted and give them all the evidence you have day books etc did you have a contract? check with ofsted that her reg was valid at the time of signing and when it changed to VC.

Don't know what to advise re tax credits, but I would give copies to them of what details you have re: payments contract etc and argue it to death. HMRC should have been verifying care providers years ago, if it helps I'm sure that they can't stop payments totally if it would cause hardship, they will prob agree a repayment schedule from your current claim.

Actually, and this is totally unrelated, most state school do offer very good after school clubs. Can't bear that sort of snobby remark. Sorry.

Well Coolmama that may be the case where you live but our current school flat refuses to provide before and after school care as only 16 parents require it, which is a bit of a bugger really and has put me in the position where I have ended up exposed to this "childminder" as a result.

Ofsted aren't interested I've spoken to them this morning and tax credits just want their money back over the next 20 years by the looks of it
Could have been worse I guess.

Message withdrawn

Tax credit people might not be interested, but your local council should be - go through to Children's Services and let them know that there's an unlicensed person offering childcare to young children and exposing them to dodgy boyfriends. They should be very interested indeed. You could also call your local police (non-emergency number, obviously) if you feel you've been the victim of a fraudster who's continuing to operate...

Not every school has very high fees Miss Sunny and I don't feel the need to post a statement of accounts on here but suffice to say I choose to live hand to mouth to pay the fee's if that's what's required.

Per the first thing I did when I found out my child had been assulted was contact the police and they really weren't able to act, I shall give the council a call though thanks for that.

The police might be more interested that she's operating fraudulently though? But yes, council should be good for safety issues.

Yes that would be about right wouldn't it, not able to take a child's word to investigate her being hurt but if there's money involved totally different matter, what a terrible moral state this country is in

Well to be fair, if you didn't report the assault until 12 months later and there was no evidence of it having happened (and you didn't even know there was a problem at the time) then what could they do about it?

Why didn't you look her up online and read her inspection report when you started to use her?