When You Ignore Child Support Letters: What Really Goes Down

Hello hope you're well my name is Keith and I make  videos on the subject of child support / child   maintenance. Welcome to today's video what I like  to do today is talk about what happens when a CMS   case is opened, when there's already some sort of  private arrangement in place so if you're probably   aware within the UK there's several different  ways of dealing with job maintenance either   through some sort Court Arrangements usually as  part of a divorce consent order or maybe privately   I think something like 40% of relationships,  post separation maintenance is dealt with by   individuals Direct in some cases maintenance isn't  paid at all because couples agree to do look after   the children and pay for the children in their  own time okay but of course sometimes that doesn't   quite happen and sometimes cases are open but  with the Child Maintenance Service. Now the Child   Maintenance Service is a government Department it  is not a company, it is a part of the Department   of work and pensions okay and it has various  powers given it to it under the regulations so   if you receive a letter from the child maintenance  service it's not an option or extraer okay it's   something that you need to look at read okay and  decide what you're going to do now what you what   I recommend you do do is you contact the CMS  within the first 14 days and let them know your   circumstances tell them if you have the children  three nights per week or one night a week update   that because the chances are most cases seem to  be open by default with no shared care at all okay   check the earnings figure that they've got for  you because the earnings figure should be your   previous full tax year okay though occasionally it  will be the year before or maybe the year before   that it just depends on where you are in the tax  cycle for example if you do self assessment uh   most people wait until almost the 31st of January  to do their self assessment okay whereas if you   are P ye okay they could use you know the the  the figures from July because the tax year ends   in April but the information are made available  to from hyc around about July each year okay now   what happens next is in the first 14 days you got  a chance to ring the CMS up and you can make this   work for yourself so you can tell say to them I  want to pay every week I want to pay every month   you can say which day of the month or which day of  the week which will make life a lot easier and I   normally recommend that you arrange for payment to  be done on payday now if you don't call them they   will by default run a calculation because they  don't need your input they just get the money   the the details of your earnings in fact not even  your earnings they get the details of your income   come from hmrc and they produce a calculation  automatically so if you ignore them the   calculation will be produced anyway and they will  set the date that you pay and the payment date   will be the first of the month provided on the  date of notification there was something like four   weeks left to go so if it's the 15th of October  the first payment won't be the 1st of November   it'll be the 1st of December so up to this stage  you had no invelopment with the CMS you don't have   to speak speak to them that's entirely up to you  but as I say I recommend you do now what happens   if you ignore those letters well once three days  have passed after the due date that the payment is   due to be made the re receiving parent can make a  complaint to the child maintenance service and the   child maintenance service will contact you about  your Mis payment if you continue to not pay the   child maintenance service will start enforcement  procedures and what that normally means is they   move from what they call Direct direct pay where  you normally pay direct to the other person but   they tell you the amount to collect them pay see  as they move to you to collect and pay they will   charge A50 fee okay and then from that moment  onwards whenever they take money they'll be a 20%   fee added to that so if your child maintenance  letter said you had to pay £100 per week now   you'll paying £120 per week if you don't pay at  that point what they'll then do okay is they they   will go direct to your employer and they would  deduct the money from your wages okay they can do   that using a a deduction from earnings order they  don't need to go to court they can just do that   some of you don't get paid so that's fine some of  you uh work for yourselves or you you ear money   through dividends or you maybe get paid quarterly  or something like that where you're not not paid   regularly okay the CMS will still enforce they  can't get the money from your salary okay where   they can take up to 40% of your net income they  would go for a deduction order from your bank and   they would take the money from your bank they will  go to your bank they've got powers to do that and   they will ask the bank for details of your income  and your outgoings and they will then assess from   that how much money they can take and they will go  to the bank and they will take the money directly   from your bank account now you have no involvement  in that apart from in fact they'll send you a   letter to say the funds have been frozen and on  a certain date four weeks later they would take   the money the in order you can appeal that you  can go make a court application and ask for that   to be appealed but most people don't so what then  happens is the money goes at their bank account   now the money that goes at the bank account could  potentially be an awful lot of money okay because   though they can't take you overdrawn if you got  £10,000 in your bank account just sat there they   can take the lot all right they can take the lot  in order to pay off outstanding child maintenance   at what stage we get to that probably about  6 months of the start of the case so I thly   recommend that you try to avoid that because  what you don't want is you don't all your money   take to your bank account which is what they'll  do for them it's just a normal process it's an   administrative thing they deal with these sort of  um enforcement measures every day if you continue   to not pay for example you clear out your bank  account you move your bank account overseas uh you   put your money with friends you put the money to a  partner then they'll start the proper enforcement   process and by that we're down the route of going  to court they will seek a liability order uh from   the court and that gives them permission to carry  out other enforcement methods such as sending   bail list to you now ultimately the CMS can send  get you sent to prison doesn't happen very often   probably on average it's once per year the DWP  do actually issue statistics on how many people   go to prison you can look them up online okay but  I would say as a rough guess it's roughly roughly   one person per year ends up in prison and roughly  about 50 people per year have a suspended sentence   you can check those figures online just by going  to the DWP statistics page about the CMS okay so   that's it so that's what happens if you don't pay  now the trouble is is I do appreciate that when   you when the case was opened you probably had a  private arrangement I think it's important to say   is when the person went to the CMS that private  Arrangement was cancelled right and I know I'm a   man I've been separated I've gone through the CMS  process I speak to people every day and sometimes   it takes a bit of a gradual adjustment all right  you do strange different things okay you continue   to give money for for school clubs or holiday  trips or Christmas presents and the like you   you take your kids to Scouts and guides you take  them all over the place and then suddenly you're   hit with a demand and it's very simply to easy  to go I don't need to pay this because I'm doing   that already the trouble is if you don't pay it  will be enforced so all that money that you've   been paying out for all those different activities  won't count okay so there very very important that   you therefore pay the CMS amount and get the other  party to pay for those extras and the reason I say   they're extras is because the child maintenance  scheme the whole idea of child maintenance is to   produce a figure that the paying parent has to  pay which represents their joint their share of   their joint contribution towards looking after a  child now I know in a lot of cases it doesn't go   anywhere near the cost of looking after a child  but it is a simple formula that the CMS apply and   it's based on the paying parents income so the  paying parent earns a lot of money that's good   for the um the parent with the with the child and  good for good good for them but the paying parent   is on benefits it's only7 pound per week that's  that's the payment amount okay the CMS that say   will will enforce these things there are around  600,000 cases is ongoing so if you get a letter   at that moment in time no matter what happens  you your private Arrangement has officially been   cancelled effectively by the government CMS don't  go looking for cases right in order for a CMS case   to be opened the other party has gone to the CMS  and opened the case it's not a case of the CMS   interrupting with your private arrangement and  sending a letter and demanding money but it's   okay you can ignore that okay it is the fact the  case has to be opened by the other party and the   CMS once they get the application they process it  and then they go through the stage of issuing the   calculations and following up from there okay  so for you don't for one moment think that your   private Arrangement still exists it is cancelled  the only thing is your ex probably forgot to tell   you now there is a slight remedy for that if  you receive a CMS letter when you received the   very first letter check the date on the letter if  you have made a payment on or after that date for   whatever to do with your children and you've paid  it to your ex you need to tell CMS because that   can be taken to account that will only happen  in the first couple of weeks so in future all   payments you make to your partner should go on  the day the CMS tell you to their bank account and   for the correct amount if you pay less you risk  inforcement if you pay late you risk enforcement   so don't go down that route because it will cost  you a lot of money and if you pay late and you are   put on a a deduction from earnings order you will  be on that for at least six months pay an extra   20% and then to get off of that they will insist  that you pay by direct debit for further 6 months   where again a 20% charge is levied so you will  be paying 20% extra on your CMS if you think of   it another way if you're paying 500 quid a month  £6,000 a year and you miss a payment you're going   to raise that up to £7,200 a year that's an extra  1,200 quid an extra 100 quid a month don't go   there guys all right okay I said guys um obviously  there are female parents that pay roughly it's   something like 80% of paying parents are male  um the remainder are female okay so that's that   well I hope that's been a use to you um if this  is the first time you've come across my videos   can I suggest you check the playlist that should  be appearing now and maybe subscribe because um I   make lots of these videos and I'm sure there's  on these videos that I make there something   that may help you out so I thly recommend that  you subscribe and check the playlist out thank   you very much you have a great weekend great day  whatever day of the week it is all right together   if you want to ask me some questions put some  comments below I do come back to people uh when   they send me questions or put comments so please  put your comments and I will try to respond to   you in the first 24 hours thank you very much my  name is Keith have a great day see you bye-bye

Channel: Child Maintenance UK

Views: 1,524

Keywords: how to avoid child maintenance, child mainenance, child maintenance after divorce, child maintenance, cms, child maintenance service uk, child maintenance uk, #childmaintenanceuk, child maintenance onlin, child maintenance service, child support, child support agency, maintenense, child maintenance payments, Single parent support, phoning the child maintenance service, how is child maintenance calculated, new to cms? this is what you need to know, Child support 2024, Childsupport

Id: SbNUFSXDSfo

Length: 12min 57sec (777 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 29 2024