Hi all,
I’m wondering if anyone could share their experience of a child maintenance tribunal?
I’ve been separated from my abusive ex-husband since my son was a few weeks old and he has always managed to pay me an absolute pittance through working cash in hand so not declaring his true income whilst living a lavish lifestyle. Throughout the years I’ve tried everything - mandatory reconsideration yearly, asking him directly for more money (which he won’t do as the money is the final form of control he has over me), via the local MP… my son is now nearly 8 and finally I have gone through the DWP complaints system, in all honesty I don’t know why I didn’t previously do it apart from I was never totally aware of it I guess.
anyway, they have reviewed it and ordered it goes to a tribunal and that he hands over all his company accounts, 12 months of company bank statements and personal bank statements. I have now received a copy of his business bank statements but not his personal ones.
my main question is, should I highlight key things to the tribunal in advance via post or is the expectation that they will look and highlight the discrepancies?
At the moment, I can see in his business transactions that he pays himself approx 50% more each month than his payslips state, that he made 2 international transfer payments totalling over £5000 around the time he travelled back to Tunisia for his lavish holidays twice a year (he is Tunisian), and also that he only paid in cash deposits totalling about £2000 for the whole year even though he is pretty much a cash in hand business and his account had around £25k in it. When we were together (pre-covid so appreciate cash/card is different these days!) he would take about £300 cash per day. On one day he paid in £1800 cash, so it’s not like he would randomly just come across that much. My assumption is he keeps all the cash and puts that into his personal account, but I can’t prove that as he hasn’t turned over his personal accounts as ordered.
so should I bring all this up to the tribunal, or do they have financial experts who examine it and raise the issues themselves?
and my other question, is let’s say it rules in my favour, do I get backdated payments for the 7 years he has lied and manipulated the system, and when our child maintenance is recalculated in the new year, do I have to go through the whole reconsideration, complaint, then tribunal again?
would love to hear other peoples’ experiences of it all!!
thanks so much in advance!!