A government clampdown on parents who cheat their way out of child maintenance payments has been welcomed by WHN Solicitors’ family law specialist Mark Taylor.
At present, deductions to recover child maintenance debts can only be made from a bank account held solely by the parent. This means a small minority of parents are avoiding payment by putting their money into joint accounts.
Now ministers are determined to close the loophole and Mark Taylor, a solicitor in the family law team at WHN Solicitors, believes the government action is a move in the right direction.
Mark commented: “We have been told by the Department for Work and Pensions that new laws will be brought in within a few months in order to shut down this unacceptable cheating on children by a small number of parents.
“The government believes closing this loophole could lead to more than £390,000 worth of extra child maintenance being collected. At the end of the day, children are being denied the financial support to which they are entitled.”
Figures broadcast earlier this year by the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme revealed an unpaid child maintenance backlog of £3.8bn, with 1.2 million people owed child maintenance.
Minister for Family Support, Housing and Child Maintenance Caroline Dinenage announced this week that a new legal power will be implemented to crack down on defaulting parents. The move follows a public consultation on joint account deductions.
Mark went on: “The government has set out how deduction orders against joint accounts will work and the safeguards that will be in place to protect the other holder of the joint account. This will involve bank statements being reviewed to determine which funds belong to the parent who owes the money. Both account holders will then be given the right to make their case before any money is taken.”
Mark added: “This latest action won’t completely solve the problem of non-paying parents, and there could be complications in cases where they have remarried and opened joint accounts. Nonetheless, it is a move in the right direction, because ultimately those who are suffering are the children of parents who are refusing to honour their obligations.”
