Can she do this? (sorry another CSA rant!)

[purplelollypop]

The saga continues....
Now DSC's mother has dramatically reduced the no of nights that DSC can stay overnight with us to 1 or 2 nights a week, (it used to be at least 3), as the less they stay here the more CSA payments she will get. We're in the process of appealing against the CSA's decision on payments as they have all of the facts wrong. If she now changes everything we have no case. In fact under this arrangement we would have to pay more.
We are entitled to none of the benefits that a family with 3 children would receive (eg childcare vouchers, family tax credits etc.) but are paying for it all.
More sadly we have had to explain (a more simplified version of this) to DSC. We thought it was better that they know the reason why they were seeing us less, than anything their DM would tell them. It was heart breaking to see all of them crying as they just can't understand why this is happening. We need to take this to court but again, we won't get legal aid and she will. On top of the huge payments we are having to make every month a minimum of £150 p/h for a solicitior is going to bancrupt us.

What is in your court order now? Do you really need a solicitor? I know it might sound a stupid question but as you already know we have a nightmare with DH ex. A court order is in place which she is at the minute trying to get reduced. For the same reason that she will get more CSA payments.

But we had a solicitor and we had an horrendous time with them. Cost us an absolute fortune which of course didn't effect Ex as ashe gets legal aid and knows fine well we don't so kept taking us backwards and forwards to court. Yet another nightmare. Anyway our legal bill of nearly £10,000is slowly being paid off. As we were good and proper screwed by the solicitor. Then we found out that DH does not have to have a solicitor to represent him at all. And to honest the last time he went without his solicitor he came away with more than he expected and up to recently that was it. No more back and forth. Just recently she realised that if we had DSC less then she would get more money so she taken us back to court stating that one of the children is too tired on a monday returning to school and that the school has made this an issue so we are not to have the DSC anymore than one night every other weekend, which suprise suprise would take us well and truly under the 104 nights. Also this is a down right lie. As Dh has a close contact with schools and knows exactly what is happening. But again this is his word against hers. And for some reason Mothers are never wrong when there is an 'absent' parent involved.

My point is though that because DH is no longer represented the courts and judge are quite sympathic towards DH. He has been told that this is quite normal.

So we work it between us and get legal advise as much as possible when it is just a quick question so that you tend to be charged that much for it and still classed as representing yourself. It is daunting but I would go for it.

Also depending on what court order state I have been informed that courts do not tend to reduce contact time they tend to increase so it would have to be a very good reason for her wanting to reduce contact time with DSC. Good luck.

That's interesting, I had wondered about representing ourselves.
The problem (well, one of the problems) is that there has never been anything in writing about 'shared care' (another term I hate!) Poor DP genuinely thought that she would always be reansonable about everything and he's always been flexible. He even went to the extent of giving her a huge amount of money about 3 years ago, almost 8 times the yearly CSA payments but of course the CSA don't take that into consideration as it was paid before she went onto benefits. Recently we've been having them 6 nights every 2 weeks and half the holidays, as well as extra nights when she's out of the country. She told CSA we were having them much less than this so that we are falsly in the 104-155 nights a year catagory. Now she has obviously been told that we are appealing this so has put it down to less than 104 nights.

My DP represented himself and got shared residency. He got a much much better result than he could have done with the solicitor he sacked- she screwed up royally and managed to get his overnight stays reduced basically from one week on one week off(ie 6 nights out of 14) to 3 out of 14 ie the standard one size fits all rubbish of alternate weekends.
It really really upset his DD, she had a settled happy routine with the one week with mum, one week with dad routine. She still says I like to spend a long time at daddys and a long time at mummys.

Anyway your DP too could represent himself purplelollypop.

Well what a surprise. Reducing contact so you have to pay more. We opted not to argue the point that we were having dsd more than the 104 nights as we knew that as soon as his x got a whiff of it contact would be cut. Luckily for us we could afford to do that.

Dh ended up representing himself too when we could no longer afford a solicitor. He got on fine, and he also found the judges very sympathetic to the fact that he was a litigant in person.

He felt he was able to say much more than when he was represented and he thinks they let him get away with quite a lot as he was naive about the Court etiquette. On several occasions he was able to argue a point better than his solicitor, as he knew the history and knew the facts.

He would definitely do it again if he needed to.

Have a look at the Families Need Fathers website, they will probably be able to give advice about this. There are people who will come along with you as an advocate (I think they're called a Mackenzie Friend), and as far as I know they're volunteers.

Families Need Fathers

My DP helps parents through Families Needs Fathers surfermum.

After the stuff he went through he wanted to help others by sharing his knowledge with them.

Does he? What an ace guy!

Thanks guys. I'll talk to him about representing himself tonight. Sounds like it's more productive than paying for a solicitor anyway. Your DP does sound like a great guy Elenor. Just about to look on famailes need fathers site. Thanks.

ElenorRigby's fella here

... yes, I'd recommend joining Families Need Fathers - the best £30 you will EVER spend. Despite the name, FNF are gender neutral and support a children's right to have a full relationship with BOTH parents, we support shared care as the best outcome for kids.

Basically, yes, ex's reduce the number of o/n stays as (you've found out), surprise, surprise, they get more dosh. So you can see that there is a financial incentive to reduce o/n staying contact as ex gets more money.

The courts are supposed to treat residence and money independently, but in reality, they are linked. Unfortunately.

Do you have any "proof" that the ex is reducing o/n staying contact to get more money - this will reflect very badly on them if they do

You need to think smart and look at the situation through a courts eyes. Bolster your case that the status quo should remain. Was child fine in the previous schedule? Was there any homework/schooling/behaviour problems? No? then why the change - get the ex to justify it. If they give vague waffle about "unsettling" and all that, ask them to back it up with examples, but then also bring in the argument that they have said they will get more money by reducing contact.

How can it be in the childs best interests (the paramount concern of the court remember!) that contact with the other parent is reduced, just so that 1 parents can get more money?

Another piece of advice - don't use solicitors, they are useless, and do more damage, and cost you thousands.

I self-represented myself as an LIP with the aid of a McKenzie friend (a lay legal advisor who accompanies you into court, takes notes, gives gentle advice and can negotiate with the other parties solicitor outside court, but they cannot speak in court for you without permission of the judge) I found via Families Need Fathers, you will get a better result and be more satisfied. and save yourself a fortune, especially, like me, if you were not eligible for legal aid.

The courts are getting more used to LIPs and the other parties solicitor actually have a duty of care towards you (!), so they need to help you out too he he.

Oh, the best source of information I found about CSA is NACSA - www.nacsa.co.uk .

Similar to FNF, but they have more experience with CSA matters. They can do assessments, give proper advice about everything to do with the CSA. Cost's £40 per year. I'm a member too and found them very useful... but then I came to a private arrangement with the ex about child maintenance.

she thought that as I had been voluntarily been paying madam's fulltime nursery fees (£550 per month, 30% of my wages), that she could happily help herself to that when madam started school!!!! The cheeky cow.

I did the CSA online assessment which gave reductions for o/n stays (madam lives roughly 35% year at mine under the terms of the shared residence order) and a further reduction due to the arrival of a new bubba (madam jnr) - so I offered £151 per month or suggested going via the CSA, knowing that it would take months before she got any money. I called her bluff.

good luck, PM me if you need any further help

Also, the dads-uk forum is a most excellent source of information and practical advice (free forum etc)

It's mainly for the male of the species though so I would recommend your fella join by himself

I'm "jfk" on there if you want to look me up

keep strong!

Thanks so much Yerblurt. That's all really useful and have lots to think about. I'll get DP to read it when he's back.
The whole issue of getting proof of time they've spent with us is a really difficult one though. The CSA aren't able to tell us how we should get this proof. Arrangements were usually made by phone and changed quite a bit so it's difficult. But I feel more hopeful that we'll get there!

I have no advice about the legalities but it seems very, very cruel to have told the children about this. You shouldn't have upset them. Whatever your problems with their mother, it's not fair to burden the children with the adult's arguments.

Well maybe the children should find out the truth that the reason they can't stay at one parents is because "the other parent says so". Yes it's harsh and I agree that it's best to keep children out of adult decisions, but how old are the children?

Anyway, how to "prove" to the CSA that the children stay at yours as much as they do.

Without the presence of a residence/court order it's just one parents word against the others.

On your CSA application form you could just put the number of o/n stays that the child stays and just leave it as that. Also, you maybes should start thinking about keeping a "contact diary" i.e. a record of contact and o/n stays at your place - this can be a simple A5 diary that you note down any interaction with the child and o/n stays. This may seem like a bit paranoid, but think about it - if you have a record of parenting time with you then you will always be able to refer to it. Buy a 1 page per day A5 diary, keep EVERYTHING in it - interaction with the ex/overnight stays for kids/interaction with the CSA etc.

Start with keeping photo's of when the kids are at yours, keeps a record, then if you DO need to call the ex's bluff over the number of o/n's then you have the proof. again, it's your word against theirs, so cover your back.

About the proof of o/n staying - how about maybe just summarising in a text or an email to the ex about the parental schedule for that week?

Go through your family calendar/diary,work out when you visited friends and family. Hopefully you can give a sample of say 6 months and show when you think you had them it would then be up to the ex to prove you didn't have the dsc's.

Good luck!

I would definatley go with representing yourself, it is very dauting the first time but believe me you cen say a lot more and get more answers than ever you can with using a solicitor it is costing us thousands, all because we trusted a solicitor if only we knew that DH could go and do it by himself we would not have had to put up with half of what we had and would not of cost us as much as it had. It is unbeliveable. If your DP goes in with a solicitor I bet you will be no more the wiser. A waste of money and your time. DH has now been twice on his own and the second time he knew what to expect and the judges are kinder towards you as is ex solicitors as has already been said. Which yes is wuite funny.

It is quite funny actually as this next time they have to go Ex solicitor insisted that their statements was only to deal with one and only issue nothing else. and that one and only issue is (hopefully) going to be quashed as I honestly believe Ex solicitor knows. So all being well Ex will be found out and proved a liar again!!! and we stay the way we are with the 'normal' contact with the children.

Good luck with court. It is a nightmare when Ex stab you in the back, not that I actually know personally. I have heard from friends about it happening. I think that is one of the reason why we insisted on having it all in writing, its just that Ex took all the time in the world and many more court appearances to get to this point. But I think she has just realised that she has shot herself in the foot. So is now trying to back track.

I have been advise that we should state in a statement that what Ex has stated is totally unfounded, and that DH believes the reason behind this is financial as she would get more money. As we can not think for the life of us why else she has stated such a statement that is so untrue.

Good luck, hope it goes well for you.

Also how old are the children. As the court will listen to children if the y are old enough. about 10 years old or possible younger if the are mature and have a good understanding and on what it is all about.

You get a free hour for advise from a solicitor, additionally the Citizens Advice Bureau have solicitors who offer their time free of charge.

We had the exact same situation with DH's ex - on advice we wrote to her to say that we expected the existing arrangment to continue, and pointed out that a court would be very unhappy with someone messing around in this way. It worked.

Have you had the residency order etc agreed by the court? They will usually rubber stamp the arrangement as it stands, and then any movement away from the 'status quo' is frowned upon.

Don't give in and don't pay for a solicitor - get some advice and DIY.

good luck and try not to let her get to you (hard I know and advice I found impossible to take!)

yerblurt, you really are living up to the stereotype of Families Need Fathers supporters.

Your POV seems to be 'Parents are entitled to take their arguments out on the kids'. Nice.

bows to edam

so what do you know about FNF?

Edam, we spent a lot of time discussing what to tell DSC about the situation. Before this conversation DP and I have never involved them in adult subjects like this, even when confronted with statements like 'mum sais you're going to go to prison because you don't contribute anything to us' and to me 'mum sais that Dad only wants to spend his time and money on you and has no time for us now'. Neither of these statmenents have any truth in them at all and we have always just let these things go and try to show tham that these statements are wrong so that they can come to their own decisions. It has got to the point now where we are only being allowed to see them 1 night 1 week and 2 nights the week after where as before it was about 1/2 the time. They needed to be told something and they needed to know that this is not what we wanted. We were very careful not to put any blame on their DM (actually blamed the CSA because I actually believe that it is their fault anyway). We did explain that it was a situation out of our control and it was something that we were going to fight for. Maybe this was the wrong thing to do but the alternative would be saying nothing and letting them think that we don't care.

Thanks everyone else. It's very interesting to see so many people have done better by representing themselves. This is a point that DP isn't convinced of at the moment, he works long hours and is worried that he won't have the time to research everything. But I suppose that's one of the things I can help with. We both know that we must just keep going and get this sorted for sake of DSC.

There's also something I don't understand that's been brought up in various CSA threads. Maybe I should be starting another thread for answers on this, but I don't get what the procedure is (or is supposed to be)with regard to taking a non-resident's partners income into account when calculating payments. I have gathered that there are 2 systems. What is the current system? DP has only ever been asked about his income, whether there are other children living in our house (which there are not) and the amount of time DSC spend here. That is all they are using in the assessment. Should they have asked more? DP doesn't want to bring it up with them incase they decide he should pay more!

Yerblurt, the stereotype is that FNF is full of women-hating attention seekers who use their children to further their own ends.

If the group is interested in genuinely helping fathers and children, it would help if they a. slung out all men who beat their wives and b. were careful to behave kindly towards their children. And NOT upset them by involving them in arguments between the adults.

My parents divorced when I was ten. And I can tell you, when children are grown up, they will realise if a parent was using them. And resent it.

I didn't know FNF had that reputation, I thought that was Fathers 4 Justice.

And what exactly are 'their own ends' Edam? To have a full relationship with their children? If that is the case all parents are guilty of this for ever conceiving. Believe me, there are enough barriers in the way that it would be so much easier for fathers to just walk away. These men are damned if they do that and damned if they fight tooth and nail to reduce the impact of family break up on their children by allowing them to continue a relationship with both parents. If you knew the stories of the posters on here you would know that in these situations is has been the mother that has 'used the children'.
Surfermum is right. I seem to remember a daming documentary a few years ago about fathers for justice not FNF. Although I also remember it being critisied as they had found a few members who were guilty of domestic violence and used them as an example. FFJ are the mad ones that dress up as batman, but this kind of situation can make people go med. Believe me!