Eversheds and CSA

[cecilstubbs]

Hello,

I hope that someone can give me some advice as I am finding Eversheds an impossible company to deal with.

My partner pays maintenence directly to his partner and has done since they split many years ago, she has never worked and never declared the payments made to her to the dole as they would have taken them off her, a couple of years ago the CSA started chasing for non-payment and stated an amount of just over £2000 owed. At this point the ex declared that payment was being recieved directly and the csa sent a letter confiming that no further action would be taken for future money and that payment could be by mutual agreement. All would be well but they they did not drop the £2000 as my partner did not want the ex to have to pay this back out of what is allready a low income, (don't get me going on that one, a whole other issue) and started to pay this back himself at the rate of £50/month as well as the maintenence to childrens mother.

Now the debt is in the hands of Eversheds who are saying that he is not paying enough and sent an i&e form which he filled in and sent back showing that after all bills and maintenence he had about £200 a month left to live on, Eversheds promptly sent back a letter saying that the recovery amount was to increase to £212 a month and they also sent an attachment of earnings document to his employer, (there has been no court case so I am not sure how lawfull that order is) He has explained to his boss that a new i&e form has been sent with all outgoings on showing that he has about £10 a month left after all outgoings have been met, this is actually the truth as he is not on a high income and comes out with just over £1100/month I have a good job and this equals things out (we have not told them of my earnings) His employer is saying that he will deduct the earnings from his salary and hold them in another account untill the matter is sorted, but how on earth do you sort somthing out with a company that does not make any sense on the phone and does not seem to act fairly on the information that is given to it??:?

[cerberusalert]

Tell him to carry on paying what he can afford, Eversheds can only get an attachment of earnings via a court order & it would be a judge who decided what he could reasonably afford, not them. It also may be worth mentioning that the CSA are happy with the present arrangement before he tells them to go forth.

 

You were right, your earnings do not enter into the matter.

[Von Greenbach]

I hope that someone can give me some advice as I am finding Eversheds an impossible company to deal with

Your correct, they are a nightmare

 

If you make no progress with Evercrap go through there complaints procedure before taking your complaint to the SRA.

[mr.ton]

No doubt if you'd have stated £212..Eversheds would have stated £224.

They always like to think that they have the upper hand & power over the debtor and what they say goes in a vindictive sort of way

[cecilstubbs]

Thanks for that,

the other problem is that they have sent a form to work that they are saying is an attachment of earnings and the boss is not keen to go against them, how do we persuade him not to start sending the £212? If it was an attachment of earnings how would he tell the difference?

[cerberusalert]

An attachment of earnings is a court order & your husband will have been notified by the court see Attachment of earnings

 

Eversheds are trying it on, make a complaint to your local Trading Standards, the OFT & the FSA.

[cecilstubbs]

Thanks, I will print this off to show him and we will take it from there.

[cerberusalert]

The court will tell the defendant to either:

pay all the money owed; or

fill in a form giving information about his or her employment, income and outgoings ('statement of means').

 

If the defendant does not send back the form, the court will try to contact the defendant and get a 'statement of means'.

 

A bailiff will serve an order telling the defendant to fill in a statement of means. If the defendant still does not return the form but the judge thinks the defendant knew about the attachment of earnings application, the judge may issue a warrant to arrest the defendant.

 

The bailiff will arrest the defendant and may bring him or her to court to fill in a statement of means.

 

If after 6 to 8 weeks you have not heard anything from the court, you should ring the office where you sent your form to see what has happened.

 

A court officer will look at the information given on the defendant's statement of means and decide how much the defendant can afford to pay.

 

The officer will take into account how much the defendant needs to live on for food, rent or mortgage and essentials and to pay regular bills, such as electricity. This is called the 'protected earnings rate'. If the defendant earns more than the protected earnings rate, an order will be made.

 

If the defendant is on a low wage, it may not be possible to make an attachment of earnings order.

 

The order will be sent to the defendant's employer saying how much to take and when to take it. The order will be sent by the Centralised Attachment of Earnings System (CAPS) in Northampton, which will be responsible for collecting payments. You will be sent a copy of this order.

 

The defendant can ask for the order to be suspended if he or she does not want the court to contact his or her employer. If the court agrees, they will tell the defendant to make regular payments direct to you.

 

If the defendant has a suspended order and does not pay, or pays and then stops, you can use Form N446 (Request for reissue of post-judgment process (other than warrant)) to ask the court to send the order to the employer. There is no fee for this and you can also get the form free from any county court office.

 

You do not have to accept the court officer's decision. You can ask for a district judge to decide what would be a fair way for the defendant to pay the money.

 

To do this you need to fill out Form N244 (form of application) which you can also get free from any county court office. You may have to pay a fee. You must say why you object to the court officer's decision. You may also write a letter giving this information, but make sure you give reasons for your objections.

 

You must send the form or letter to the court within 16 days of the date of the postmark shown on the envelope which the attachment of earnings order came in. The court will make an appointment and you will be told when to come to court. If you do not go to this appointment, the district judge may make an order without you being there.

[cerberusalert]

You can double check with the Centralised Attachment of Earnings System (CAPS) in Northampton, but considering your husband has had no contact from the court it fair to say there is no order made.

 

Centralised Attachment of Earnings Payments (CAPS)

Address

5th floor, St Katharine's House,

21-27 St Katharine's Street,

Northampton Northamptonshire

England

NN1 2LH

 

Switchboard

0845 408 5312

General Fax

0845 408 5315

 

Enquiries:

[email protected]

[cecilstubbs]

Wow, you are the font of all knowledge!

thanks very much for your help.

[babybear39]

The CSA don't need a court order for an A of E.

[cerberusalert]

CSA need a court order for an Attachment of Earnings Order, it's a Deduction from Earnings Order they don't;

 

Deduction from Earnings Order (DEO)

Our main aim is to secure regular payments of maintenance.

A Deduction from Earnings Order (DEO) is a method of

collecting child maintenance introduced by the Child Support

Act. In order to minimise disruption to employers, DEOs have

been designed to operate in a similar way to existing

Attachment of Earnings Orders under the Attachment of

Earnings Act 1971. The decision to apply a DEO is taken by

us, not by the courts.

A DEO may be requested by a non-resident parent as a

method of payment, or by us if other methods of collection

(such as payment through the banking system) have failed. A

non-resident parent who pays child maintenance by a DEO

is known as a ‘liable person’.

The order is sent to the employer who pays wages or

pension and he or she must take the amounts shown. These

amounts are paid to us to cover the maintenance liability and

any arrears due. When the payment has cleared our bank

we then forward it to the relevant person.

The payment cannot be sent before this and any delay in

forwarding the payment to us may result in hardship to the

children and Parent with care. Failure to comply with a

Deduction from Earnings Order is an offence under

section 32( 8 ) of the Child Support Act.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/leaflets/csa2002.pdf

[babybear39]

Oops, silly me getting mixed up *blush*

[cecilstubbs]

Now I'm confused.

The maintenence due is paid by my partner directly to his ex, the csa have said that is ok in 2007 and have said that is the end of the matter. The arrears are paid to eversheds and have been paid at £50 for some time it's only recently that the whole thing has gone pear shaped and they are demanding more than he can afford to pay them, and we don't seem to be able to get them to listen to reason. Today the employer has said that he is going to deduct the ammout from the wages and hold it in another account until the matter is resolved, this will cause us even more problems as we will still have to pay the £50 off the arrears, the £212 will stay with the employer and the maintenence will go to the children as well!!

[cecilstubbs]

Also , just to be sure, if eversheds find out that we are living together will they have any legal claim over a portion of my income?

[cerberusalert]

So if your partner is paying directly to his ex where do Eversheds come into this?

[cerberusalert]

After re-reading I understand now...it's the arrears.

 

Right as we have determined there are no court orders, no attachment of earnings & no Deduction from Earnings orders. Eversheds can only collect what your husband agreed to. They have no right to send an AoE form to his employer. As I said earlier make a complaint to the OFT & the FSA about their activities.

 

As for them finding out what you earn, that has nothing to do with them and cannot be included unless ordered through a court.

[cecilstubbs]

I have had a look at a copy of the form and it is a deduction of earnings, worded to make it look like he is a non payer and that the children will be in hardship if the payment is not made. partner asked to up the arrears payments to £75 and they came up with this amount and sent the form to work, is there anything we can do to alter their mind, are they in the wrong for coming up with this amount or do they have the powers that they seem to be weilding?

[cerberusalert]

Have you tried getting back in touch with the CSA to get them to cancel the DoE, after all they did send you that letter originally accepting the previous arrangement? It may well be a clerical error on their part. Also explain what Eversheds are up to.

[spamheed]

Your partners employer has no legal right to withold his wages, whether it is with the best of intentions or not. Eversheds do not have the authority to make an employer cough up, only the CSA and/or the courts can do that. If there is an assessment to be made over your partners ability to pay, then this is made by the CSA and not with Eversheds

 

The CSA cannot touch your personal earnings, or property, the liability is solely your partners.

 

I went through something similar many years ago, I was paying my ex directly and the CSA didn't like it, they even tried to con my new wife to provide info. there is no legislation requiring such a divulgance of information

[cecilstubbs]

Thanks for that, the thing is they are holding the money and how do we get them to hand it back, also how do we stop them acting on the order that they have. do we need to go to a solicitor and get a letter?

[cerberusalert]

Have you been back in touch with the CSA to ensure they haven't made a DoE ? Only they can make the order not Eversheds. If they haven't get them to verify in writing that no such order has been made & either ask them to contact his employer or give his employer the letter from the CSA.

 

Eversheds must be acting on behalf of the CSA so it's their responsibility to yank Eversheds chain.

[cecilstubbs]

Once again, thanks for the advice. We will get onto the csa again and check things out with them.

[cecilstubbs]

Update,

We spoke to the CSA to explain the problems that we were having with eversheds, they also expressed some concern regarding the way things were being handled. They have not issued a DOE but were a bit cagey about the paperwork that eversheds had issued to work. They have said that a representative from their collections team will ring after the bank holiday to try to solve the issue, and that it may be that they will take the issue away from eversheds as they can see that no payments have been missed and from what we are saying eversheds seem to be acting in a heavy handed manner, they appologised for this and said that unfortunatly ours did not seem to be the only incidence but that we should understand the difficulties that collecting some money presented for them. I have to say that I know all cases are different but then the company should deal with each case as an individual one and not use bully tactics with everyone. I will post another update when we have heard back from the CSA.

thanks once again for the help we have been given on this site.

[cerberusalert]

They have not issued a DOE but were a bit cagey about the paperwork that eversheds had issued to work.

It's hardly suprising they were cagey, Eversheds don't have the legal authority to issue DoEs.

did not seem to be the only incidence

It sounds as if Eversheds are due for a spanking from the CSA.

 

When this is resolved, which it should be next week, a formal complaint to the OFT wouldn't go amiss.

[email protected]

 

tel: 020 7211 5823