Hey guys, I need some advice! I'll give as brief as possible background to the issue at hand first.

I have a 6 year old daughter with my ex, who split from me when my daughter was about 3 months old, and have been paying child support for ever since. I was living at home with my parents and have had no end of problems with the CSA regarding the payments. First I've overpaid despite me paying exactly what theyve told me to pay, and then I somehow have underpaid so they went straight to my employers for a deo. I didnt like it as the problem occured because they have calculated my payments incorrectly, however I kept quiet about it. I then met my current partner and after a year an half she fell pregnant just as i was starting a new job.

I waited a couple of months before advising the CSA so i could send them 2 months payslips to work out my new payments, however it took them approximately 6 months for them to come back and advise how much i should be paying (approximately £150 a month), and by this time it had built up 8months of backpayments that i owed. They then started taking payments from a deo with my employer. During this time my second daughter was born and I have never advised the CSA that my 2nd child exists due to me forgetting to contact them. My partner moved into her own property, and I remained at my parents as my main residence but would stay over my partners a couple nights a week as we couldn't afford for me to be living there aswell at the time with me having to pay the backpayments as we were told that we werent entitled to housing benefit with me living there, as they look at your salary and not any deductions for child support etc. BTW my partner does work as a waitress in the evenings, so shes not a bum lol During the last 18mths my partner has fallen pregnant again, and i am expecting my second child with my current partner in june.

I have now just recently moved in with my partner to a new property and her16yr old sister also lives with us for the foreseeable future. We have just been told that we are not entitled to working tax credits as our income is to high (i earn £14k before tax and csa, and she earns about £4.5k), we have currently applied for housing benefit but are not hopeful of receiving much if anything. My partner is due to go on maternity leave in May and will see a significant decrease in our income as she will no longer be bringing home tips from being in work.

I currently pay £400 towards our rent, my partner inputs £50, and the remaining £200 is giving by my partners mum as payment for my partners sister living with us. After all deductions from my earnings I am left with around £400 after the rent is taken. Of this £400 approximately £200 of that is currently going on payments for various things like Mobile Contracts and contents insurance etc. This leaves me with roughly £200 as my general spending money for things like the weekly food shopping, general spending and also to go and buy clothes for my eldest daughter for the 2 nights that she stays with me. My partners spare income then is spent on purchasing things ready for when our 2nd daughter arrives, aswell as the weekly shopping bill, and also to pay the water,electric and gas bills.

I do understand that i do need to notify the CSA that i have moved in with my partner, but do they take into consideration her income even tho we are not married? Also do they take into consideration my outgoings such as rent and bills, things that I am liable for to ensure that I can keep a roof over my soon to be 2 daughters head, and also for my eldest when she stays down on the weekend.

If they do take into consideration my partners earnings, is there anyway that this can be avoided? I do not have a problem paying child support for my daughter, but i do not agree that my new partner should be liable when she is not the mother of my eldest daughter.... Any help or guidance on any of the matters ive discussed above would be greatly appreciated!

Btw i no i said the words "briefly" earlier, but nothing is ever brief with me lol

Hi Mallrat

I am not an expert in CSA, but based on my own experience of them, I know they will take the income of a partner in to account, but only for the purposes of deciding if they can contribute to the household costs. As your partner is not currently living with you, then I don't think this will be an issue.

The CSA do take the amount of housing costs into account such as rent & mortgage.

Hi Mallrat.

Gbarbm is correct as long as your CSA case was opened before March 2003.

If it was open afterwards, as I believe your case was seeing as your daughter was born 2006ish, then the Child Maintenance formula is based on your Net income (Gross - tax and nat ins and a bit of pension)(and soley your income), and the number of children you have in your household and the number of children you have to pay for outside your household. If you live together, you should call the CSA asap to advise them you have a child in your h/h as it will most likely lower your assessment. Bear in ming they will not backdate it to when you moved in with your partner or your joint child's date of birth as it is your responsibility to inform them. Once your new baby has arrived, call them again.

Hmmmm my ex's girlfriend, whos house he has lived in for the last 7 or 8 years, she works full time, her wages aren't taken into account. I didn't think it was anymore. And I agree that they shouldn't be taken into account. Why should she have to pay towards my kids

Hmmmm my ex's girlfriend, whos house he has lived in for the last 7 or 8 years, she works full time, her wages aren't taken into account. I didn't think it was anymore. And I agree that they shouldn't be taken into account. Why should she have to pay towards my kids

She wouldn't be paying for your kids anyway in the 'old rules'. The old formula worked out a protected/exempt income rate for you. Only this would b affected by ur partners ability to pay towards the rent etc but her income would not have been used to work out UR net income. Basically it's a 3pg formula that works out how much ud pay if u were single then works out how much u would get exempt including the basic cost of having a dependant. I.e. of ur partner didn't work at all, u would have got a higher amount of protected income. Ur assessment would not be higher if ur partner is in work, only ur PI would b affected as she'd b expected to contribute to the household costs. PI is taken from net income sort of. It's as difficult to explain as it is to work out but bottom line is that partner's income DOES NOT make ur assessment higher.

Sorry jadey I got u mixed up with the OP! Thought u were asking y UR partner should pay for ur kids!!

lol no worries. I'm still waiting for my CSA payment this month though. Nothing new there, it's the same every month, even though there is a deo on his pay & he works for the NHS! Hope you get it sorted OP, it is definitely a minefield!

Jadey, the delay could be the fault of the employer not sending in the payments on time, however Nhs will probably have a sent a bulk payment and itinerary for the CSA payments team to separate and allocate the right payments to the right case. Then it takes a few days to process thru the system. The payment schedule u were sent should really be used as a guide to how much, and the dates as the approx dates it's due. If I rcv the payments roughly the time time every month then go by that.