surely this has to be classed as income?

I had a lightbulb moment last night.
My ex has been renting out our former home to tenants for £900 a month. He has always received all of the rent, I have never had any of it.
The estate agent who manage the property take £100 a month so my ex has been getting £800 a month for the past almost 3 years.
For the past 6 months (could be longer) he's not paid ANYTHING off the mortgage or secured loan (hence repo proceedings in progress) but has pocketed the money.
The CSA are doing a criminal compliance case on him (and have been for 2 years) and they say it's very complex as he's got a lot hidden and a lot of inconsistencies. He claims not to be working but also doesnt claim benefits so I get a big fat zero £'s child support for our 2 kids.
Anyhow, last night I realised that he's been using the rent money as income as he's not been discharging it on either mortgage so surely I'm owed 20% of what he's had?
I'm going to phone the CSA with my latest thought but find they're usually rubbish with advice.
What do you lot think?
He already owes me 3K backpay from when he WAS claiming to be working which the CSA arnt chasing (despite him being asset rich) and to my calculations I should be due another £960 (£800 a month, 20% of that £160x6 months).
Am I right in thinking this?
Lou xx

Lou,
Just been trying to work this out for myself as ex's house is up for rent at the moment.

There seem to be two schools of thought - the simple one that yes, anything after paying mortgages and estate agents fees and carrying out maintenance etc. is taxable and if it's taxable, it's income.

However, from a CSA perspective it doesn't seem to be that easy and it would appear that a variation needs to be requested. Whether this is a variation that needs to be requested if the ex doesn't declare the income or indeed, the ex himself needing to ask for a variation given that he knows he has the extra income, is not clear. I have appeals and tribunals quoted at me so clear as mud, really!

If he's sending in evidence of a tax return to the CSA, my question is whether or not you'd ever really know if the income was declared or not? I understand that a tax return has a tick box for income from property rental but of course the whole confidentiality thing with the CSA would prevent you from ever knowing if it had been ticked. I assume, however, that your ex, like mine, doesn't bother with formalities such as tax returns anyway....

All I can suggest is that you phone the CSA and talk it through. If they don't know about it, they can't investigate it. And then put it in writing. May lead them to another bank account, eh?!!

I think you're right. There is mention on the CSA website that variations can be put into place for anyone who owns assets or property additional to their main residence that is worth 65k or more. I am sure that income received from these are classed as general income by the CSA. I looked into this a few months ago when my ex wanted to reduce maintenance when his baby was born (he owns a flat abroad that we bought together during our marriage). We never included this in our calculations as I was happy with the level of maintenance agreed. He has since backed off now I've discovered this!

Does anyone have a number for the CSA?
It's no use me trying to call the case worker on criminal compliance as she never gets back to me...and the "normal" CSA say they cant get involved as it's with criminal compliance!!
Lou xx