Child Maintenance Overpayment

[JoEy84]

I have being paying child maintenance by direct pay of £450 a month. Big child is 20 years in June 2019. Have no contact with mother or child. Called up CMS early April 2019 and inquired if big child was still currently legally eligible for child payments as did not think child would be doing A levels at 19 years old.  Was meant to make payment early April 2019 and withheld until CMS got back to me. CMS called me yesterday and demanded payment as mother has not received April payment. I inquired if big child was eligible for payment – seems nothing was done by CMS about by previous call.  Anyway CMS called mother and inquired what big child was doing at the moment. Mother told big child has been going to university since 2017. Therefore I have overpaid over 8K in child maintenance. Question is what are my chances of getting this money back? has anyone been successful in claiming back money. As I state I have zero contact with child or mother.

[JoEy84]

I have overpaid for one child. Will claim the 8k back.

[Russ]

I have also overpaid maintenance for my daughter who is 20 years of age on September 12th. Apparently I received a letter from the CMS on the 8th January 2020 informing me that from 1st September 2019 she was no longer in Full-Time Education. I have no contact with either my Ex partner nor my daughter.

Firstly I did not receive the above mentioned letter so I have continued paying up until August 2020. To me it appears she has been guilty of fraudulently taking approximately £2500 from my bank account.

I finally managed to speak to somebody at CMS on Friday. She kindly informed me that I had overpaid my Child Maintenance and then sent me the letter that I should have received on the 8th of January 2020. This however does not get me the overpayment money back.

I have been very accommodating with the CMS. They were very quick to inform me when I was slightly behind with my payments a few years back and I apologised and made up the shortfall straight away. My Ex has clearly shown no intention of letting me know I should have stopped paying (No Surprise There!).

The CMS told me they would inform her that I had overpaid so I shall await the outcome of their action. In my opinion the situation should work both ways in these unfortunate circumstances, I feel I have paid my dues and now I am hoping that she has the same moralistic values as myself…hmmmm.

[picklepie24]

In theory you should have the money back but i wouldn’t hold out much hope the cms are useless at collecting arrears i can’t imagine they will do any better at collecting an over payment.  If they take it directly out of your pay you might have a better chance because they have been collecting money when they had no right to so might be something you can do legally, or maybe you can take your ex to small claims court.

[cmsuseless]

I have just recently taken my ex to the small claims court to recover my over payment of child maintenance, is was a waste of time trying to get the cms to do it they were not interested. in fact they are about as useful as a chocolate teapot, they act as an agent for the woman to get money but when you over pay they don’t want to know. I have the proof to show I have over paid so watch this space to see if I get some money back…..

[Mercury Dad]

cmsuseless – I am in a similar situation and the CMS is all one way ie they take it and don’t give it back even when you know they have overcharged you

Can I ask – How did you get on with the small claims action?

Yours is the most recent post i can find re this, shameful isnt it how the search results rarelt deal with over payments, its almost like we are expected to gift this

 

[steve3334]

Hi,

Is your CMS case closed? If your still paying maintenance then CMS would offset your payments against how much you overpaid.

[Mercury Dad]

Hi, i am currently unemployed, bit hard as a management professional but my wife and i have planned for this period and will be comfortable for a bit, in my final year too as ends in August, at the very least i will never have to pay another penny in maintenance but that’s not the point here

Spoke to someone on Friday who said its not their problem, i need to ask my ex for it back,  tried telling me if it was Collect and Pay then they’d have to refund me but as i had no issues with payments they couldn’t help

I went off like a rocket on him, he was totally out of touch and i threw CMO bias at him too

I’m normally very polite but like i told him i pay £amount because he/they tell me to OR ELSE, i simply cant refuse, then an English court of law agrees and 5 months later CMO apply the credit but don’t refund it after 3 months of phone calls, there is no arrears or other accounts etc etc or any other stall tactics they can use, also quoted Mims Davies MP from January 2020:

https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2020-01-15/3791

This gave him pause as he didn’t know what to do next, i said don’t be put out as i’ve yet to speak with anyone that has actually refunded a NRP!

As i said to him this isn’t right, they control this and cant act without consequence, telling me to ask my ex was laughable at best

So i’ve taken my own advice and gone on an email rampage:

• I want all my notes from the last 12 months – takes them 30 days and yes they will be sanitized by them they told me
• Written to my MP
• Complained to the CMO that i haven’t had an outcome from the complaint raised in November
• Claimed compensation for blatant maladministration

My contact strategy will now be 1 call followed by an email

So we shall see i guess…i predict another 6 months of nothing from them

 

 

 

 

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