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My 16 year old son has been living with me for 3 months now and in this time he has stayed with his mum for 4 nights.
I have 2 children with her and I’ve paid cms reluctantly because she’s a terrible mother and uses the money for herself rather than the kids, she neglects them, goes on holiday and leaves them at home on their own (youngest child is 10) doesn’t pay for any after school activities, refuses to buy them new uniform when they need it so I end up paying for it.
A few months ago my 16 year old who was starting his GCSE’s had enough and asked to come and live with me and my wife which we obviously agreed to. I told CMS and they sent a letter to my ex and she rejected my claim. I rang CMS and told them and they said I’d need to appeal the decision and upload evidence and make a claim for his child benefit and get as much evidence as I can.
we have now changed his doctors to our address, my son has rang HMRC and had his National Insurance number registered to our address and told HMRC that his main address is our address. He’s told his school that he lives with us now and had his address changed to our address.
We uploaded all this evidence and I’ve just received a letter saying she’s rejected our claim as main carer again, it’s so unfair that they are completely disregarding what we are telling even though she is lying.
what do we do now?
hi,
have you contacted HMRC about claiming child benefit?
Yes, I’ve made a claim to HMRC for child benefit which is what CMS told me to do and that was about 4/5 weeks ago and I haven’t heard anything back yet.
CMS told me that if he’s not living with her then it’s benefit fraud and she will get in trouble, I’ve told her this and she said she doesn’t care she will keep rejecting it.
I have to appeal their decision again and that means it will be put forward to go to court which can take 18 months which is outrageous that she can do this and CMS are telling me that while it’s ongoing I still have to pay her, surely there is another way to prove she’s lying other than child benefit which I’m lead to believe she can keep denying that he lives with me and claim it still.
Why is it so one sided towards the mother 😡
Since I last posted on here I rang CMS to appeal the decision for a second time that they rejected my claim that my son lives with me because my ex said he doesn’t which is a lie, He’s stayed with her now for 5 nights in 3/4 months.
the guy I spoke to at CMS who seemed like a nice chap and was understanding of the situation said the next step would be taking the case to a tribunal to which I agreed, he went through all the evidence I have uploaded and said he can see that it’s quite obvious that my son is now living with me and that a case worker would be calling that week (last week). I didn’t receive a phone call so on Monday I rang them again to say I haven’t received a phone call and the guy I spoke to this week said there has been no appeal and that the case hasn’t been escalated to go to a tribunal and advised me to log on to the system while on the phone to him and change who the main carer is for my son. I asked him if this would take me back to square one and he insisted that it wouldn’t and that a case worker would see what’s going and would be in contact with me to discuss the next steps.
I got a letter today saying that they’ve asked my ex and she once again said it’s not true and rejected it and asked me if I would like to do a mandatory consideration, in other words I’m back to square one.
this is insane and I’m going round in circles and nothing is being done, the sheer incompetence of CMS is beyond a joke at this point and I feel like there’s nothing I can do, even when I’m trying to do the next steps they’re not doing their part and I’m getting nowhere, what can I do at this point?
@j0n3sy87 hi,
sounds terrible. you should seek mandatory reconsideration. they will likely reject again, then you seek tribunal. it would be form SSCS2: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/appeal-a-child-maintenance-group-decision-by-the-dwp-form-sscs2
and you have to include the MR rejection letter.
you should contact your MP and ask them to raise complaint with CMS.
Hey @j0n3sy87
I’ve literally just been through what you are experiencing (unless you’ve resolved in the meantime).
CMS were helpful with my case, quite sympathetic in fact, but as soon as the mother said child still lives with them, my case was abrubtly closed.
I had evidence coming out of my ears (school letter, change of permanent address at docs etc, prov. driving licence etc) but won’t touch my case until I had child benefit in my name. Literally, EVERYTHING rests on who gets the Child Benefit.
This is the part not to give up on.. It took that department 11 weeks to award my rival claim. And I only (accidentally) learnt there is a rival claim dept at HMRC you need to engage with once your claim is assigned. Mine was assigned within 2 weeks of submitting, but the main helpline just kept informing me of “no outcome yet” and to wait the obligatory 12 weeks for an update. They nearly made it to that, if not for my continued nagging.
As soon as I spoke to rival claims dept, it was sorted and awarded. And backdated!
Now, I’m off to the CMS to open a new case for maintenance.
The bit I am really annoyed about, is that the mother told CMS when I opened a case 10 weeks ago that child still lived with her. She clearly lied given all the evidence I have collated, including messages that admit it was false. But CMS won’t pursue that fraudulent and false information, and clock starts again with a new case.
Everything feels so painfully slow and against you whilst working through the process of Child Benefit and CMS.
I’ve definitely learnt it is not a gender thing, and just the fact that these depts are working with systems and processes that are stuck in the 80/90’s. But [censored] it feels like your a dad fighting the world alone to get the truth to come out.
Good luck on your case, and try get the Child Benefit award sorted asap.
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