Malicious CMS claims by husbands ex-wife

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HI is there any legal recourse we can take to prevent my husbands malicious ex-wife lying to CMS nearly every month saying the maintenance has not been paid? It is paid every single month. We can prove it every single month. The ex wife has made up to 21 accusations of non payment in a single day. CMS are having to waste time and resource that could be better spent (you know helping families that actually need arrears chasing etc), sorting out the proof of payment etc etc and it is causing us significant stress on a monthly basis.

This month she has stated that no maintenance has been paid for a year and we now have a bill of over £1000 as the new monthly payment as she has told them he is 7k in arrears, he is not and we have proven it. We have told CMS we want a tribunal this time as it's so stressful and we will get one but not for months. Meanwhile she carries on making mayhem and trouble and no-one seems able to stop her being so batshit.
We can't take much more of the situation. It takes hours each month on the phone to CMS and hours of downloading all bank statements etc. It has got to the point where my husband won't be able to afford to work soon as his commuting costs and this new fictitious bill means he will net less than £500 per month from a full time job.
We need her to stop. Any advice on how to do so? I am concerned we can't go for harassment as its indirect as the main stress comes from CMS but only because they act on her reports as they have to even though they can see the history.

Could you move to direct pay? Will be a bit more, but worth it to avoid the stress.

It has got to the point where my husband won't be able to afford to work soon as his commuting costs and this new fictitious bill means he will net less than £500 per month from a full time job.

How do you mean? Is extra money being taken and not refunded? And how is the commuting related?

Thanks for replying :)
We could move to direct pay but we would have to pay 20% extra then and that in itself would be over £100 as he pays quite a lot. And also why should our bills go up just because she is mental? Doesn't seem fair to us when all our costs are rising like everyone else. Also she would see that as her winning which just pisses me off too!

Surely if it’s monthly then it’s just a case of showing last months evidence and adding this months? Shouldn’t be taking hours. Can he over pay by a small amount or be month? Then he is never in arrears?

im guessing that there is a back story and she wants drama. Don’t rise to it, just be calm.

Sorry I wasn't very clear. He takes home 2300. Commuting costs 600. Leaves 1700. If we pay the new bill of over 1100 (not stating exact amount so as not to out ourselves) he is left with just over £500. For a full time job which is stressful and has long hours. Leaving me covering the majority of our costs as he will be left with little to contribute to our household.
CMS have said the current bill is wrong but they won't be able to rectify it by the payment date so up to us what we do. Husband is nervous that if we don't pay it it will reflect badly at tribunal stage.

Agree with you completely re drama - she thrives on it.
Unfortunately with CMS you speak to someone new every month and if you get a good advisor they cannot fathom out the mess on his case system notes so the whole sorry story is gone through every time as with good advisors they want to get to the bottom of it.
He has never been in arrears. He actually is about 2k over in payments. Why should he pay more? He already agreed to a frighteningly small settlement from a very large pool of marital assets as he wanted his children to live well despite the fact their mother is a work shy lazy feckless woman and knew if he left her with virtually everything the children would be financially secure until adulthood.

as far as I'm aware, tribunal stage is very late in the process and there are 2 complaint stages to get through first... when a payment is reported as unpaid, CMS contact the paying parent and demand payment or proof of payment, only after this stage would an underpayment be produced and you would automatically be move to Collect and pay to collect ongoing maintenance and arrears. The only way arrears can be added to the account is if the paying parent cannot prove payment or does not respond to contact from CMS.

I would be sceptical that you have the full story... as a receiving parent, my experience is that it is very hard to get them to accept that a payment has been missed and ask them to collect arrears- it certainly doesn't happen just from a report by the receiving parent and certainly not in a short space of time. Just to put this into perspective, my ex has not paid since last February (2021), owes £5k and only in the last 2 weeks have they put him on collect and pay to collect the arrears.

It has to be said though that they are a disaster, they don't seem to get it right for anyone so you may have the full story, just sounds out of step with the experience I've had. I was told that until they changed the case to collect and pay the arrears would not be collected and they couldn't change it to C&P without giving him the chance to prove payments.

Don't blame you for scepticism - it does seem far fetched. I do know the whole story as CMS now speak to us on speaker so both of us can hear. They have not produced an arrears statement or an arrears chasing letter etc - we just have the words of the last advisor who said the bill is showing payment level of 100's too much and the only reason can be because your account shows arrears. The arrears are based purely on the information given by receiving parent - although they did also state last week that their system is ineffective and could be showing invalid info.

In which case, when was the last payment schedule produced? if he is still on direct pay (which it sounds like) he pays what is on the payment schedule as there will be no arrears included (we know that any arrears would trigger a move to collect and pay) make a formal complaint, if that doesn't work the first time, get your MP involved as they have a direct line to CMS.

If arrears have been included in a payment schedule then he will be on collect and pay, paying the 20% extra and having to make the payment via CMS (4% will be deducted from the payment before it is passed on about 6 weeks later to the receiving parent)

Have you got access to the CMS portal? in the messages will be the most recent payment schedule. The only way arrears can be included is if a) he's been moved to C&P or b) he's told them he can't pay the arrears in a lump sum but can pay over 12 months- this would involve agreeing that arrears are due.

Good luck, they are a nightmare, and even when it's explained in words of one syllable they tend to shrug their shoulders and say they don't know 🙄

He should not pay the £1100 this month and stick to the payment schedule. CMS has already confirmed the £1100 is wrong so he’s be a fool to compound the problem. He still controls what he pays.

I run a business.

It's very tempting to reinvest profits back into the business when it's growing. Mostly as I have no need for all the money as I am not materialistic and spend my time working or hanging out with my daughter.

My ex likes calling CMS even though we have 50/50. I don't know why she does it and I explained I am far more likely to give you money if you stop doing things behind my back. I also said I would always pay to ensure our daughters comfort despite having shared care.

I don't think many dads really want to avoid paying CMS. I think some struggle with the amounts and I think the answer is shared care so both parties are responsible for their own fortunes in life. I don't feel like I want to help myself to anything my ex earned.