Child Maintenance Service

[Amyj0107]

Hi, has anyone else received rather annoying letters from Child Maintenance Service. I got a letter from them wanting £2600 for my greedy ex for outstanding CSA payments from years ago. The thing is I wrote letters and sent copies of statements to the CSA that mainly got unanswered. They seem to have lost these or not passed them on to the CMS. I really can’t be bothered to go though it all again and don’t see why I have too if the CSA are to incompetent to do their job plus there is more chance of hell freezing over than my ex getting a penny off me. Has anyone took their case to their MP and had any success?

Do you actually owe the money?

Or did you pay the money and they've lost the record of it?

Presumably this is based on assessed income? Or did they get it wrong and you sent statements to prove it?

I provided all the information years ago. I paid direct to my ex through my bank and never missed a payment. I don’t see why I should have to apply for bank statements again at my own cost when the CSA either have lost or can’t be bothered to forward all the info over to the CMS. Apparently the CSA contacted my ex asking if she has received the £2600 arrears, because she is a greedy ex and thinks she can get more money, she has obviously said no l.

Whilst it is annoying you are going to need to get bank statements and send everything again to CMS. Make copies of everything. Send recorded delivery then they can't say that they don't have it.
I don't think it will go away otherwise. Not dealt with CMS myself but this is just from experience of other annoying companies like student loans.

It’s really annoyed me, at the time I was going through child court proceedings so if there was any non CSA payments they would have been brought up and dealt with then. There wasn’t because I do not owe anything in fact the CSA even assessed what I was paying and it was found I was even paying too much! It’s a shambles it really is!

Paying too much 🙄

CMS gives a minimum amount they deem reasonable to pay a percentage of your income towards your kids

It's not a crime to pay more than that percentage

RPs always pay a higher amount

Because of some administration errors you will just need to provide evidence, annoying but not the end of the world or worth starting a war with an ex over

RPs always pay a higher amount This is demonstrably incorrect.

TBH it pains me that I paid anything at all so to say I owe over £2K is laughable. The money I paid didn’t go towards my daughter. I bought absolutely everything and she mainly stayed with me anyway under duress that if I stopped paying I would go back to the court order contact. Now my daughter lives with me and has done for the past 4 years, I let her see her mum when she wants which is about once every 2 weeks. She is amazing and I’m so proud of her. There is no war unless my greedy ex smells money. And that’s a war she certainly won’t win!

Sure collaborate- it absolutely costs more to pay a percentage of your income than to pay the bills, rent, food, etc that you require due to being the RP 🙄

Amazingly RP's can't just move into bedsits, skip paying the gas etc or live off beans when they are parenting

Every now and again there s a 'greedy ex' thread over CMS.

You say your DD that you are proud of lives with you, and you have now total control and you allow visits with her DM, so now you have it all and are happy still unhappy and griping
I don't see what the threads about really, csa don't transfer anything and you should know that, you start a brand new case. Just send statements, big deal,just want to call your ex greedy and shame her

She is called a greedy ex because she is one, she used to be called the Posioned Dwarf because she is small and unpleasant but now she is the greedy ex because she only surfaces when it’s about money.

My daughter is fully aware of what she is like and she refers to her as wicked witch of the east.

I never said I had control, my daughter is in control of when she wants to see her mum and I facilitate that by driving her there and picking her up when she wants to come home.

Not sure what the crossouts are supposed to mean? To suggest I’m unhappy is so wrong, I’ve never been happier! Her mum put my daughter and I through hell. Now it’s all over why would I be unhappy.

I’m just after advice regarding this CMS letter. You say they will always start a brand new case, if thats true why have a got a letter from them saying it’s from CSA payments from 2012 to 2015, that’s historical and the CSA have an obligation to forward notes and documents relating to this.. that’s the point of my post! And I was asking for any feedback from those who might l be or have been in a similar position.

Sending statements from 5 years ago for a 4 year period from a bank I’m no longer with isnt something I really want to be doing. It’s not quite so easy as you make out.

Nah I’m not trying to shame her, she can do that all by herself ;)

I have an awful abusive ex

Hell would freeze over before I encouraged or allowed my child to call them a poisoned dwarf or the wicked witch of the east

Parental alienation isn't great for children

It's fucking disgusting frankly and not to be engaged with further. It's child abuse.

Poor bloke! My husband is in v similar situ to you and the letters at just constant because his greedy ex thinks she can get more money for her next holiday without DSD!
I've no advice except to ring them, my husband had more luck speaking to them. Good luck

*Incallthebloodytime
*
Sure collaborate- it absolutely costs more to pay a percentage of your income than to pay the bills, rent, food, etc that you require due to being the RP 🙄

Hmmm yes it does - in almost every example I know of including our own. (High earning leafy commuter town South East). Ex wife married for 5 yrs , gave up work when expecting 1st child . 2 kids. Now 10/8 remarried to another provider. Still doesn't work but received 70% of family home and 2 k a month. There is no way she pays out anything like that on the kids. We paid school trips as well this year for yr 6 residential as dsd wasn't going because they had 'other financial commitments ' ....

Whilst there are plenty of feckless fathers letting the mum pay and struggle for everything. - up the other end of the spectrum there are plenty of greedy entitled takers.

If it helps to keep the peace with your ex, I have recently received several messages telling me I won’t get expected payments because they have been unable to collect them from my ex. He was put into that plan after he failed to increase maintenance as requested for a year. I explained to the CMS that I didn’t want to give him the trouble/cost of a collect and pay and would be happy if he wanted to spread the value off the underpayment over 12 months to be paid on top of current calculation. I suppose he agreed with that because I started getting more than the calculation direct to my bank but I suppose he didn’t tell them he had done so and has been ignoring CMS communications.

As soon as I heard he was moved to collect and pay, I rang CMS to tell them I was being paid, they took note of all the details and I thought it was the end of it, but, 2 months later I got another message indicating he had not paid yet. I rang them again. I just got another message again explaining he has not paid, I emailed yet another time with the details of the payments and called them for the third time. I have been told I can remove the collect and pay but that I won’t be able to put it back in a long time if my ex underpays it stops paying altogether again. So I asked them how much was he supposed to be paying this year and they told me it was difficult to know. If they don’t know if he is paying the right amount, how on Earth do I know?

So I can’t remove it because they cannot confirm he is paying the right amount, and also because they have warned me that if he stops paying I’m totally unprotected and I cannot even call my ex to tell him to stop ignoring the letters, ring them back to show proof of payment as he is acrueing interests because the last time I contacted him trying to forward his post to him he treatened me with a non molestation order, so I can’t help because I’m scared and he is not even so nasty to call me names.

So, it may not be that your ex is being nasty, just the ineptitude of CMS... I can assure you they keep me in the dark about mostly everything that is going on and what tricks they are doing on my ex even if I have tried to sort it for him in three occasions already.

Best of luck

Ps. If your girl is living with you and your ex is now the non resident parent, why are you paying maintenance? Have you told the CMS about it? They don’t read minds abdvfrom what I see, they do not listen either...

@NotSureThisIsWhatIWant

They still have to chase it as a non payment regardless of where they now live.

I'm 29 (and have my own kids/ home/husband) and they're still chasing my mum who owed my dad a few thousand.

The sad thing is she's very unwell and not on a great income now and can only afford £5 a week and my Dad won't let it go. The thing that's the most annoying is that he's claiming for period of time I WASNT even living with him. I moved in with my sister at 16 because my stepmom was a nightmare!!

It's crazy!

'it was found I was even paying too much!'

I know this isn't the main purpose of the thread, but Inwant to take issue with this mindset.

What CSA would have told you back then is that you were paying more than the legally enforceable minimum. There is not such thing as 'too much' when it comes to providing for your DC.

How old is your DD? Could you pay the disputed amount directly to her? That strikes me as much better message to your child (probably a teen by now) become aware that you would rather have the hassle/cost of proving you have paid the bare enforceable minimum and refusing a penny more .

I have never gone through the CSA, I have always done it direct through my bank. I paid the minimum based on my earnings because I know (like many on here) the money was to finance my ex’s lifestyle rather than going towards my child.

I am self employed and have always paid my accountant do do my books so the payments would always be correct and on time So like I said earlier.. there is no outstanding amount.

My greedy ex is simply using the CSA’s incompetence to try and extort more money.

I do not apologise for calling her for what she is. I could call her much worse, of course I don’t involve my daughter in this, in fact I give my daughter money so she can buy her Christmas & Birthday presents yet my daughter is lucky if she receives a present from her. I think I do more than most would. My daughter gave her the name of the wicked witch when we were watching the wizard of Oz and she turned to me and said “that’s my mum!” She laughs about it now, she knows what she is like but tolerates her in small doses.

Child abuse lol... have a word with yourself!

I stopped paying a year after my daughter came to live with me. I knew if I stopped straight away she would stop her but after a year it would be difficult, plus as she has got older they chose where they want to stay with their feet.

Sympathy to everyone going through hell with the CSA and CMS, the incompetence of these organisations is unbelievable.

it absolutely costs more to pay a percentage of your income than to pay the bills, rent, food, etc that you require due to being the RP

You might not believe it, but NRP's have to be able to survive as well. They too require; roof over their head, something to eat and clothes to wear.

I used to pay more than the CMS figure to ensure Child was not disadvantaged in any way. However, soon came to light that Child was not benefiting from the extra money. So I now pay direct for; Birthdays, Christmas, School Trip and Hobbies.

For every poster who correctly states CMS maintenance is the legally enforceable minimum, and the NRP can choose to pay more, the opposite is also true: That the assessment figure is the maximum the NRP can be forced to pay, and that the PWC can choose to accept less.