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My court order had been effect for one year to the middle of May 2012. The child maintenance of £1,500 was based on my earnings prior to my redundancy, even though I had in fact started a new job when the court order was enforced. However, I was earning considerably less. I warned my ex-wife prior to the court order running for 12 months, that I could not afford to continue to pay at this level and that the payments would likely halve. I went on the CSA calculator to determine what I should be paying on my current income. I informed her of this and then reduced my payments to her to this new amount of £800 from June 2012. She would not accept this and said she would only agree to £1,100 a month. I then approached the CSA to have them determine the correct figure. I furnished them with my income and calendar demonstrating that I had my two children, on average, 2.5 nights a week, comfortably within the 2-3 nights range. My ex wife gave them contrary information and stated that I had my children for an average of just over one night a week. After much correspondence, my ex-wife finally changed her statement and told the CSA that I did indeed have the children for over 2 nights a week. The CSA then set the new payment at £800 a month from 25 October 2012.
My ex wife is now taking me to court for payment of the difference between what I have paid (£800 a month) and the court order amount (£1,500) for the period June through to October 2012.
Can anyone tell me definitively if I owe her this money or not and if the court is most likely to tell me to pay it? Does the fact that she tried to convince the CSA (which she knew not to be correct) that I only had the children one night a week, get taken into account?
Andy
Hi
I would say (bearing in mind that I'm not an expert in these matters) that strictly speaking, you are in breach of the court order, so you do owe the money she is asking for - the court order can be overridden by the CSA, but this was not done until October, so the original order does stand until then.
However, the court would have discretion on whether to enforce the full amount, and I would say that it's quite possible that the court would award a lesser amount than the full amount taking into account the circumstances. I presume that your ex is using the fast track courts since I reckon we are talking about 3,500 in total. If this is the case, you have a few choices. You can make a reasonable offer, and hope she accepts it (make it in writing), making sure you put in a repayment schedule. If she doesn't, then you will be fighting out in a small claims court (not as intimidating as it sounds), but before you go to court, you could also make a payment into court of the amount you offered - if the court makes an award of this amount or less, then that's all you pay - if they award any more (even by a penny), then you could be liable for your ex's legal costs - if she is using a solicitor to do this. If it's purely her doing it on her own, then I'd say let it go to court, present everything you have, including all correspondence with her, CSA etc and let the court decide.
I would suggest that you contact the Citizens Advice Bureau asap to get further advice on what I have suggested as they will have a legal expert.
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