Joint Mortgage, Liabilities

Sorry, forgot to add:

If he has stopped paying the mortgage, when you speak to the bank find out if you can switch to interest-only payments for this period of uncertainty. This is likely to reduce the amount that must be paid in the short term at least.

Hope it goes well for you

Hi, yes my friend has the same problem, she cant backdate any payment. Also, a close friend of mine never reported a pay rise in nearly 8 years to csa but they never check. I shouldve contacted them as soon as I left but I thought I was being reasonable.

The CSA are not so clever i agree but they do seek from the moment NRP leaves as well.

This happened to me, despite having a private arrangement which was equal to the CSA figure for about 4 months when stbx decided she wanted to go down the CSA route they wanted to chase me for the moment i left....so let them explain that to you

I had to prove via bank statements the amounts i had paid and that i was not in arrears.

Take notes of who you speak to and what they say one of the problems i had with them was some of their staff didnt have a clue what they were talking about and they are one of the worst organisations for partly that reason

The CSA can''t back date arrears accruing before they receive an application. A calculation for child maintenance is only effective from the time the NRP is notified - Regulation 25 Child Support (Maintenance Calculation Procedure) Regulations 2000

When one spouse is struggling financially and the other has the resources to help out the courts can order maintenance whilst a settlement is being sorted out and afterwards. A solicitor can advise where you stand and if this is an option in your particular case.

Hi Fiona, thanks for the reply. Unfortunately solicitor is not an option for the obvious reason of affordability.
I have contacted CSA today and got 2 different answers. One say the amount would depends on many things, such as the joint loan my ex been paying (it was to pay his car and credit cards). The other reply says, the loan will be disregarded because its used for his benefit. And no backdated is allowed, but I can go to a small claim court if I want to collect any arrears.

I''m not a solicitor and have no vested interest but not seeing a solicitor can be a false economy. It is possible to engage some solicitors on an ad hoc basis and do the form filling and representing yourself in court to keep the costs down. For example, a solicitor could give you advice only or represent you at later hearings. Having said that you didn''t say you were married and spouse maintenance cannot be awarded to co-habitiants.

Recently the CSA have been advising people to make claims through the small claims court and it would be interesting to know the basis for their advice. My understanding is that unless the CSA applies strictly speaking the small claims courts cannot make an order for child maintenance , the law doesn''t allow it.

u6c00 wrote:

nk111 wrote:

You may even be entitiled to a backdated amount that he would need to pay you , assuming he has enough to pay you....

Hi

I just wanted to let you know of the personal experience of a friend with the CSA which relates to this.

Friend claims maintenance with CSA.
Ex loses job (probably to claim benefits/legal aid). No maintenance is paid.
Several years pass, and friend learns ex has had a job for more than a year.
Friend tells CSA, who say that they cannot backdate the claim. They only change a claim if and when one party informs them that the circumstances have changed.
Maintenance begins being paid. Ex loses job again.
Ex immediately phones CSA to report change in circumstances.
Months pass, Ex gets job, doesn''t tell CSA or Friend.
Friend finds out, phones CSA and no backdating is possible.


Now I don''t know if this is standard practice but it seems that there isn''t any legal obligation to report a change in circumstances like there is with tax credits for example. This means that non-resident parents can be on the phone immediately when they get a pay cut, but never phone up when they get a pay rise.

My advice to the original poster therefore is IF you choose to go down this route with the CSA, do it as soon as possible, any time that you pass up is likely to be money you will never see.

These stories sicken me; the same has happened to my sister. But of course this just illustrates the stupidity of the CSA "one size fits all". They spectacularly fail to claim maintenance from people who are trying to avoid paying it, and then over penalise those that do. To take another extreme, if you earn net £4000 and incur £1000 travel expenses, the CSA consider your income to be £4000 less a tiny amount £50-100 if you are lucky) which they allow. This drives people away from good jobs that would ultimately benefit their children.

And then of course there is the abuse of the system by some mothers, who are motivated to deprive fathers of overnight contact because it''s financially better for them.

Personally I think the CSA should go and courts should make individual decisions based on individual circumstances with proper sanctions (prison) against those like the fellow you describe above who are just abusing the system,