child maintenace and sick pay

[griffintribe]

My dh pays his ex directly with an amount worked out by the csa.

He has been off work for 9 weeks with a broken wrist and only been paid sick pay.

Obviously since he's only on sick pay we have not paid his ex her full amount this month because we have bills to pay and only a small wage packet to live on.

She is going nuts.

Does anyone know where we stand on this, do we still have to give her her full amount even though we only got sick pay? If so how can they expect us to survive for the month on hardly any money

I would suggest getting in touch with the CSA and asking them to do a recalcualtion. Explain that your circumstances have changed due to your H being on sick pay.
Then once H is back at work you can return to the previous agreement again letting the CSA know. This is more so your H ex cant contact them and try to get arrears. If she does they will only collect arrears from when she contacted them.

call her and reason wiith her. she should be earning her own money.

or you could buy the food and bring t round for our kid, so she cant say thry will starve but then u can stop giving her the child maintenace whilst on your sick leave.

If your income has dropped due to sick pay and you are finding it very difficult to meet your own financial commitments then I think you are justified in reducing the child maintenance.

After all, if your partner was unemployed or changed jobs which meant his income was reduced, would you think it reasonable to maintain the same amount of CM?

No, because, there has been a Change of Circumstances (COC) and the CSA are quite used to this. Albeit yours is a temporary situation, but you are still fine with reducing CM.

Maybe it would be worthwhile putting it in a letter (copied to the CSA too!) stating that you are on sick pay, your income has reduced and thus you are reducing your CM (using the same formula/assessment to take account of reduced wages).

Leave it at that - if the CSA wish to do an enquiry then they are free to have copies of your pay slips or contact your partners wages department to confirm your income.

Are you on CS1 or CS2 scheme (i.e. is your CM calculated using a % of wages with reductions for overnight staying contact/other children of you and partners)