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.

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