CSA overpayments - please help, desperate.

[David777]

Hello,

I used to claim CSA from my absent father(he paid CSA only from when I was 16 onwards) until May of last year, when I turned 20 and my entitlement to CSA finished.

We were contacted by CSA today, and told that my father had claimed to have overpayed by £1400; he claimed that be continued paying monthly after my entitlement ended. Now we were very much aware that we weren't due anymore payments, and we didn't recieve any, but he has bank statements to show the money leaving his account. Unfortunately we've changed bank accounts since then so don't have any statements to hand(although we're trying to get hold of them).

We said to CSA that we felt it very unfair, and that we would seek legal advice, as my father was notorious for trying to avoid payments(he's claimed lower income than he actually was getting in the past, so that he had to pay us less), but CSA told us they "are no longer dealing with [fathers name], you are dealing with us. We have already reimbursed fathers name]".

So now obviously the pressure is on us to pay up, despite the fact we never recieved the payments in the first place. We are in no position to pay either, as Mum is on disability allowance, and I'm only in part time work as I'm currently training for the Police.

Do we have a case here? Are we being treated unfairly? We do feel a little bit as if CSA are just trying to bully the money out of us due to them jumping the gun and paying my father before they had the full picture.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Hopefully you can help us.

David

[stevemLS]

Re: CSA overpayments - please help, desperate.

Sorry David but I don't think you are being treated unfairly.

You need to track down the missing payments. Did you close the account that you were being paid into? Even if you did, banks are supposed to "forward"payments after closure.

If not, surely the receiving bank can trace them using the information from your dad's account.

In broad terms, where a payment has been made in error, it is usually recoverable.

[David777]

Re: CSA overpayments - please help, desperate.

Hi, thanks for the reply.

I'm going to pop into the bank tommorow and see if I can recover the bank statements from that time.

The account they were being paid into has been closed, but only very recently. In the time they claim the payments were being made, it was still open.

Upon digging through our documents, we have found a letter from CSA stating that we were not due any more payments. That was dated August 2014. I've also found another case of this happening, where the payee was told by CSA that as the overpayments were his fault, they aren't legally obliged to try and reclaim them.

[stevemLS]

Re: CSA overpayments - please help, desperate.

So the account was open when the payments were being made?

Where have they gone then?

I'm a bit lost.

Post up a link to the other case you have found would you?

Thanks.

[nemesis45]

Re: CSA overpayments - please help, desperate.

If the bank branch wont help, a Subject Access Request to its head office should get
the required statements.

nem

[David777]

Re: CSA overpayments - please help, desperate.

Here is the link to the other case. Slightly different but that's where I got the CSAs quote from. http://www.legalbeagles.info/forums/...-reimbursement

Well obviously the payments were being made to CSA first and then in theory they would send them on to us. I'm just wondering if he paid CSA, but because of some error, the money never made it to us. That would certainly explain why he's been sending money and we haven't been recieving any.

Again thanks for the help

[stevemLS]

Re: CSA overpayments - please help, desperate.

Thanks for the link.

However, I don't think the circumstances are just a little different, in the case you mentioned, there appears to have been a clear failure in the CSA systems insofar as the automatic flagging on cessation of child benefit did not happen. There appears to have been some element of deception on the part of his ex as well.

In your case, you were notified by letter in August 2014 that you should receive no further payments but he continued to pay.

If I've understood correctly.

The two circumstances are not comparable.

You need to get to the bottom of those missing payments.

As well as considering an SAR on the bank, you could perhaps consider such a request of the CSA.

[David777]

Re: CSA overpayments - please help, desperate.

Thanks,

We'll pop to the bank tommorow and try and get those bank statements. It certainly is a mystery as to what happened to his alleged payments. I myself am on very little income due to my caring role taking up a lot of my time, so I'd certainly notice if I had a few cash amounts appearing in my account.

[David777]

Re: CSA overpayments - please help, desperate.

Right, just got bank from the bank. I admittedly did get my facts wrong a little bit. The payments were going to a different account than we realised. Even so though, these payments that date from May 16 onwards(when I turned 20) until the final payment in August only accrue to 514 pounds, so where the CSA are getting this figure of 1400 from I don't know...

[stevemLS]

Re: CSA overpayments - please help, desperate.

OK, well you're getting somewhere.

Is the £514 available to repay then or has it been spent?

Are you sure the payments stopped in August, I got the impression from your earlier posts that they had continued beyond that date despite your finding the letter from August?

You need to get a full breakdown/schedule of payments from the CSA.