When to the CSA start tyring to get money owed?

I ahve a CSA arangement for my STBX to pay £32 a fortnight for our two girls, which was started in June. The last txt I got from them was on the 29th August saying he had paid £32 but I have received nothing since. There is no contact between me and him nor does he see the girls (he chooses not to see them as contact needs to be supervised due to his controlling). So basically how long does it take before the CSA will act to get the payments owing. I also guess it will be harder as he is self-employed and so can just say that he isint working (but can afford to run 2 vans and a car and he lives with his parents so has no rent to pay out)

£1.14 a day per child goes nowhere, especially as one of those children are disabled and you are suggesting that he should pay less? Doesnt even cover their bus fares to school so they have to walk an hour a day to school and an hour back while he drives around (and he refuses to sign the tenancy over so that I can move closer to the girls school - even though he only got put on the tenancy because he married me, it was my tenancy to begin with!)

James Connolly wrote;

If the courts decide that there is no benefit from the children having contact with the father then why would he feel any obligation to pay for children that he never sees?

Because child maintenance isn''t "pay-per-view." Children of separated parents often do badly in the long term because the family doesn''t have enough money to go around so paying child maintenance is one of the most important contributions a parent can make to their offspring''s welfare. Why would a responsible father (or indeed a mother) want to make things worse for their children than they already are?





dancemom, you need to phone the CSA and ask for updates.
If the arrangement was for payments to be made direct from your ex and it isn''t working you can ask the CSA to collect the money. When payments are made through the CSA only those payments which the CSA receives can be past on and it can take 6 weeks or longer after the initial arrangement was set up before you receive any money.

Be prepared and plan for the CSA to take some time to collect payments if the father is self employed and won''t comply because payments can''t be deducted from his earnings through an employer. In the first instance the CSA should contact him to find out why maintenance has stopped and try to collect arrears.

If that is unsuccessful the next step would be for the CSA to apply to court for a liability order which allows the CSA to use other methods to enforce payments. After getting the order the CSA might still try to reach a voluntary agreement with the non resident parent to start regular payments and arrears. If no agreement is reached bailiffs can be called upon to collect the arrears.

Eventually if none of the above is successful the CSA can use one of the following measures - taking money from benefits, deductions from bank or savings accounts, disqualification from driving, a charging order forcing a sale of property, committal to prison or even taking the arrears from the estate if the non resident parent dies.



Initially the CSA carries out a basic assessment and it is up to the parent with care to apply for a variation if they think the non resident parent has income that hasn''t been accounted for in the child maintenance calculation. The CSA have limited powers to ask for information and if a variation isn''t granted it can be worth appealing. Appeals are heard by tribunals and a tribunal has more powers to get information. If the information requested isn''t provided a tribunal can draw adverse inferences when making a decision.