Rent Allowance Office claims my Child's Mother owes €4000

Hi All,

Short story is that the mother of my 2 children has been told she owes €4000 back to the social welfare for not claiming she was receiving maintenance from me. They have said she owes the money back for a period of 2 & a half years. For the first 1.5 years she did actually claim the maintenance I paid and has proof to this effect. For the last year she has not claimed I have been paying maintenance as I have not been able to pay on a regular basis or to the full amount.

Originally we went to court back in January 2011 for Guardianship, Access and Maintenance. I was ordered to pay €50 a week as I was only earning €290 a week and had bills etc. I had only 3 months previous deferred my 4th year of college due to stress (new baby, court etc). I paid €50 maintenance every week from January until the end of September 2011 when it was time to go back to college. I originally intended to work weekends and earn around €150 per week but all of a sudden there was no weekend work left in my place of work and I had to quit to go back to college, this was the only way to have a real future. From here on in I literally scrapped up enough money each week to get myself through college and pay her maintenance whenever I could. I always recorded the payments and made her sign a receipt book. It worked out that I only paid her €20 a week from October 2011 - May 2012.

Upon finishing college I was only entitled to €96 social welfare which yet again didn't even cover my own bills. I still paid what I could. However I got lazy about keeping receipts and did not make her sign anything.

As I was paying maintenance on and off for almost the last 2 years she did not claim I was paying any maintenance (they would not accept her saying I paid whenever I could) and thus her rent allowance was increased. The rent allowance was up for renewal a few weeks ago and she stated I am now paying maintenance and they asked was I paying before, she explained that I was a student and paid whatever I could whenever I could. They then stated she had to repay them the sum of €4000 euro for not stating how much was paid, can they do that even though realistically she couldn't rely on me paying regularly?

She has rang me going mad saying I must pay the €4000. I have only just started a career job after a year of unpaid internships and I'm earning 19000 after tax. I have started paying maintenance on a regular basis of €300 a month.

Is there anything she can do about the €4000 and is it right they are making her pay it back?

Just in case anybody thinks ill of me for not paying full maintenance, I literally couldn't afford it and I also couldn't afford to go back to court to have the maintenance order amended. I did however still see my son every weekend from usually Friday night to Sunday night.

Thanks for any advice.

From reading your post, it appears that your former partner failed to declare that maintenance was in payment (even if it was sporadic and not the amount set by the court). She failed to give accurate information on her income and means when applying for Rent Supplement, and failed to notify the SWA office when circumstances changed.

She has been overpaid, and must pay it back. She may try to appeal the amount owed, based on the payments you were making.

Was she on another Social Welfare income at the time? Was maintenance declared in respect of that payment?

I'm not a legal expert, but it may also be the case that if you have not paid maintenance as ordered by the court, then your partner can pursue you for the arrears due.

But there was no way that she could update them everytime her circumstances changed, if he was paying sometimes, not others, and random amounts, she would have to put in a form once a week. Essentially she is being penalised for him not paying her the court ordered maintenance.
As usual it will be the children who lose out. OP, you should pay the arrears, its entirely your fault she has them.

Regular updates could have been supplied, and entitlements would have been based on the available information. This happens if people in part-time employment (with variable wages ) are in receipt of a payment - the person supplies payslips on a monthly basis and their entitlement is adjusted accordingly.

The OP's former partner appears to have declared no additional payments at all.

Magpie said:

As usual it will be the children who lose out. OP, you should pay the arrears, its entirely your fault she has them.

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At the end of my post I stated I am now paying €300 a month which is 50% more than court ordered. I intend to pay a little more once I can clear my loans etc. which IMO would be paying said arrears.

Would the amount that has to be repaid only be calculated from when she did not declare the maintenance? Also will they go by the court order or by what I actually paid?

She was on a single parent family payment also, I do not know if she was claiming the maintenance payment with them or not, we tend to keep conversations only about our son and not about anything else as argument quickly arise.

Thanks for the replies.