I’m fortunate that my ex pays child support, but our daughter had a learning disability and he refuses to support with the costs of her appointments (about $700 a fortnight, her disability is NOT covered by NDIS), so I don’t even ask anymore and pay myself. His CS amount is less than half of this a MONTH. My issue is he pays child support infrequently and in random small amounts and irregularly. It’s under CSAs assessment. I would like to be able to put the little CS I get into the costs of her appointments but being that it is so infrequent and irregular it’s hard to, but the financial impact of it is really affecting myself and other child. Can anyone advise what the process is like getting in touch with CSA to ask they please garnish the amount from his wages? What is the process like?
4 Replies
It's really easy you just ring them up and request they collect payments on your behalf and they will talk you through it. It does take between 4-6 weeks for you to start seeing any Cs or even longer if they don't know where he's working.
Just ring them and complain the payments are infrequent. If they aren’t already collecting on your behalf, they will arrange that first.
Contact CSA to collect on your behalf, they can back date for 3 months from the day you contact them. Also ask what extras you can claim for your child’s additional care needs. You may have to complete some additional paperwork or submit receipts of what you have paid, what Medicare or private health paid, but it would be worth that hassle if it means you get some extra financial support. I’m not sure exactly what extras you can claim, but my son was tube fed for many years and apparently I could have been claiming additional support to help pay for his formula. I only found out a few months ago when I was contacted by CSA as my ex had requested a reassessment. I was asked what extras I was paying for son’s additional care needs to see if I could claim any extra.
You can apply for a change of assessment based on exceptional circumstances, in that your child has a higher cost burden (much as I don’t like that term) due to special needs.
You can also request agency collect and garnisheed wages. They will generally backdate 3 months from the date of request if there are arrears, or sometimes from the date of request if a change is lodged and approved. If you do go to agency collection the benefit is that they can collect any arrears from the time of agency collection in future should your ex fall behind.
It’s also worth looking into Carer’s payment and allowance through Centrelink, and also looking into an appeal if NDIS was rejected. There are many advocacy agencies that can help with this.