Hi, desperately seeking some help and advice.
I’ve been a supportive and paying father since the start, never missed a payment and always supported.
My ex never allowed me to see my kids for more than 1 / 2 nights as she would get less money. Via the children she has accused me of ungodly things and slowly but surly turned them against me.
I feel like a mug as every time my ex has an issue I support 100%, Navie hope that one day I might be treated with some respect.
During lockdown my kids, their mother and her new husband all got COVID I delivered food and also took my ex stuff in hospital.
Today I’m worried because of the actions of this woman I might lose my house, might have to give up work and struggling to see how I will put food on our table!
I lucky enough to have a fairly good job, last year I moved companies, notice handed in the day before lockdown.
CMS was agreed at £528 a month / 6.3K pa for 2 children. The two households are dis-similar my wife and I have a young son plus her son from a previous relationship living with us. I had 2 girls with my ex. She works full time, her husband is in a good job. Both have cars, 3 bed houses etc etc.
My income over the last 12 months is very unpredictable. I have the ability in normal times to double my salary in commission provided I meet targets. During COVID that was difficult, my employer did reduce the targets although we did get confirmation of the reduction till a few days before pay day.
Long and short it made it impossible to predict earnings. To make matters worse they also messed up payments.
The main issue I had with CMS was if they set the monthly amount too high and my employer stopped paying commission, which they have done now, then I would have trouble paying.
April 2021 comes and I get a letter from CMS stating I owe 3.5K in arrears. I later find out that they took 2 random months pay and multipled it by 6. The figure is some 10K different to what I was actually paid.
I’ve disputed this through mandatory reconsideration, currently collecting information for an appeal.
Adding to the arrears they take this random figure and re-work the monthly amount to over £850 a month plus arrears.
At the same time my employer stopped paying commission making the difference between the random figure and actual earnings to be close to 40K.
In May this year I was supposed to pay 3.8K, that was higher than my actual earnings so I just made the regular payment of 528.
I wrote to CMS explaining I couldn’t pay and I was going to court of appeals to appeal. I asked if they could hold off collecting arrears until appeals heard. I do t doubt there are some arrears but not that much.
I messaged my ex explaining what’s happened and provided current wage slips showing my actual annual earnings and current reduced earnings.
I got no reply from either.
What happened was my ex reported me for not paying the 3.8K and tried to switch to direct collection, which was refused.
I got a call from CMS asking for to pay arrears and increase monthly amount. In hindsight I should of increased the monthly amount.
I find communication with CMS difficult they aren’t forthcoming with information. Bearing in mind at the time of that call I didn’t know how they got my annual salary so wrong I was head strong that this needed to go to the court of appeals.
A week or so later I get a letter from CMS stating they were going to collect from employer and the new amount would be £1,700 a month for 10 months.
That would leave me with £800 a month!
I contacted my ex who swears blind she didn’t instruct them. She told my children I’m not contributing, they hate me more for not paying.
My ex says I need to negotiate arrears etc and they will remove direct collection.
Ive written to my MP who to be fair did write to CMS. We got a response back which didn’t change anything but was very insightful. It confirmed my ex was the one who pushed for collection. That they know CMS is fair but they are restricted with how much information they can collect. Also got the first time they say how they made up my annual salary.
After 5/6 attempts at requesting a call back I am finally speaking with a case handler who is trying to help.
He has called my ex to ask to take off collection and save me 20%, she said no! He is trying to spread the arrears out over a longer period of time to reduce monthly payments.
Oddly in 3 months my arrears have gone from 3.8K to over 7K which he can’t explain and will take 10 weeks to get a breakdown. Although I must start paying them off now.
My MP has written to CMS again, another unhelpful but insightful letter back.
I still don’t feel I have enough detail to appeal, still unanswered questions. Which leads me to my first question - can I appeal even though I don’t know how they’ve made up the arrears on the grounds that my actual salary was some 10K lower than they said and my current salary is some 40K lower?
I feel I need evidence of how they got their calculations wrong?
My next question is more challenging on the law. Why doesn’t CMS, who have written to me saying they system isn’t fair, take into account the receiving parents income. Why isn’t there an expectation that the receiving parent isn’t expected to contribute financially to my children’s up bringing? Why can I not treat my son who lives with me the same as I’m expected to treat my 2 daughters? I can’t save for any of their futures.
My ex on the other hand had 6.3K pa / £528 a month for my 2 girls. We have 2 boys living with us and they don’t cost us anywhere near that. And now I’m expected to pay 10K a year - why? What for?
I can’t afford to pay 10K. I can’t afford to repay arrears. I can’t afford to pay CMS their 20% collection fee on top.
Can I appeal / make a case to challenge this monthly amount? My 2 girls won’t benefit from that, they gave part time jobs they’ve been told by my ex they now gave to buy some of their own stuff for school.
Is it even worth appealing? Are they just going to say the same as CMS - yes we know it’s not fair but that’s the law.
Help and advice welcome.
Hi,
If the arrears are wrong/fictitious then you can ask for a subject access request, so they give you full breakdown. Check https://www.nacsa.co.uk/data-protection-file-complaints
Also would be good idea to email a top CMS boss; arlene sugden -
Arlene.Sugden@dwp.gov.uk complaint.reviewteam@dwp.gov.uk ice@dwp.gov.uk
Think you should copy in your MP when you email those addresses.
Hi
In addition to the advice from Bill, I think you have to look past your views on the CMS and try to understand how it works and then navigate within that.
CMS does not factor in the receiving parents income, she could be a millionaire but CMS is all about your contribution to your kids. Also the amount to be paid is set by legislation, its the same for everyone paying. It doesn't matter how much you believe kids cost, the legislation sets the amount to pay.
Once CMS is paid to the mother, she can do whatever she wants with it, ideally should be for the children but it's irrelevant, once you've paid it you've done your bit.
Have you made sure that the CMS are aware of the 2 dependent kids in your household? This will reduce the amount that you have to pay.
Regarding the recalculation and the arrears, it may be that during those 2 months your salary was more than 25% greater than the amount that you reported as your income? Is this the case? In which case you were legally obliged to inform them of this increase. This would have avoided the arrears.. Jobs where there is overtime or commissions are often the ones where there are issues with CMS.
The fact that your salary is 40k less now, if that is 25% less than the salary CMS hold on file for you then they should reduce your salary and thus your payments. Clearly this won't help with the arrears but may help overall payments.
I would appeal and the main thing is to have evidence of your income during the period and calculate how much you should have paid vs what you have paid to highlight the disrepency.. However, if you have failed to declare then clearly this will work against you although at appeal the overall income for the year should be considered..
All the best.