Child Maintenance advice self employed ex

[Hidingwithcoffee]

So can anyone advise here.

Ex used to pay a reasonable regular amount of maintenance. Then CM agency said he needed to pay more, in one of their annual reviews, and he began claiming he earns next to nothing, and suddenly he pays very little and we're worse off.

CM keep telling me to follow their process, I do the paperwork but they reject it themselves saying there's not enough to go by. It was escalated to their investigations unit once before, they said they suspected he had more income than they could see, but without evidence they couldn't do anything. Told me to get back in touch every 6 to 12 months, which I do. But I have to sort on hold for 45 minutes and only access to a basic call operative, unless and until I can give them more to go by.

Ex is self employed, and I think is finding ways to hide money. It's likely he's on £130k+ given his skill set. He always had pensions, investments, all sorts. He could be using his partner to hide money. I don't know.

DC have no contact (his choice, since they were small), we live several hundred miles away and have had zero contact for years. No mutual friends. I have no way of getting any 'evidence' for CM agency. Ex has no social presence i can find. Nothing in his name in Companies House.

He could be destitute but I really, really doubt it. He's clever enough to be earning a lot, and finding a way to not pay CM.

If anyone has been down this road. Is there anything else I can do. I assume i could hire a private investigator but that could cost me more than I get back. Anything else the CM should or could be doing? Anything else? TIA

It’s really shit but there isn’t really anything else you or CMS can do. They can investigate with any evidence but beyond that, if he is clever enough, it’s a dead end. It’s a huge problem.

If that's the plain honest truth thanks, I appreciate it.

CM make it sound like all I have to do is submit another form (or the same form again in 6 months) and they might do something. So I do, but they don't and always so vague. It's maddening. If the truth is they just never will get us anything, I'd rather know and stop wasting my time.

Has anyone used a private investigation, anything like that, to get evidence? I'm guessing the cost deters most people in my position. I don't even know where he lives right now so they'd have some digging to do.

Do you just give up and suck it up?

ok I’m going to look up what evidence is needed for a lifestyle not in keeping with declared income, hang on. There is a CMS decision makers handbook you can use to guide what you ask the CMS to do. It’s maddening when they are so meh. There are absolutely things they can do, like looking at his HMRC returns for one.

check this document out on the kinds of evidence the CMS can look at when considering how much income a non-resident parent actually has:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65f97f03aa9b76001dfbda70/volume-7-evidence-and-decision-making.pdf

If you think your child’s non resident parent is diverting income you can make an application for a variation on these grounds.

An organisation like Gingerbread may be able to help you.

Don’t stand for the CMS just fobbing you off with “come back again in six months”. That’s just not good enough.

You could contact your MP and see if there’s anything they can do.

Thank you. CM say they can see nothing via hmrc. When DC were smaller they did a review, it came back to say he should pay about £1,500 monthly. 2 months later, they said £0 and he was on minimum wage. He had given them 2 payslips to say that, and apparently that's all they need. I'll try calling again with the link though.

Yes I second calling your MP. Is he employed rather than self employed? It’s absolutely not true they can’t contact HMRC! And if his lifestyle is not in keeping with his claimed income, apply for a variation on the grounds of diverted income and ask them to refer the case to the financial investigations unit.

Report to HMRC if his lifestyle doesn’t match his declared income. He could be paying himself in dividends etc but they have closed/are closing the loop on that.

If he’s older he could be drawing down his private pension which I think is exempt from CMS.

Most likely he’s scamming HMRC somehow.