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If you haven't told us that you're not going to make a payment, we can take action to make sure you do pay. If you are paying through us, we can take action immediately. If you and the other parent agreed that you would pay them direct after they made an application to us, and you fail to keep to that arrangement, the parent with care can contact us and ask us to take action.
We will try to get in touch with you by phone first. If we cannot contact you by phone, we will write to you and warn you that we can start enforcement action unless you:
- make an agreement to pay the full amount of the child maintenance you have missed
- keep to the agreement you have already made.
You then have seven days to do this. If you do not contact us and agree to pay what you owe, we can start enforcement action.
The action we take will depend on the circumstances of each case, but could include court action.
We work with specialist debt-collection agencies, which have the authority to:
- contact parents who don't pay
- collect child maintenance on our behalf.
If you don't respond to this warning and you are working for an employer, our first step is to take child maintenance from your earnings or your pension. We will do this through a compulsory deduction from earnings order. We will tell your employer how much to take from your earnings or pension. Your employer must take this amount and pass it to us on your behalf. If they fail to do this, we can take them to court.
Your employer may also take an extra amount of up to £1 from your earnings every time they have to take money from your earnings. This is to help with their administration costs.
If your employer cannot take the full amount direct from your earnings or pension (for example, because you haven't earned enough in a particular week) and you haven't made other arrangements to pay, we can take you to court. Taking court action is costly and you may have to pay the court costs as well as the child maintenance you owe. This is the same if you are self-employed.
If you are in Her Majesty's Armed Forces and have failed to make your payments, we will send a request to the Ministry of Defence to take the amount owed from your wages.
If you get benefits, pension or a War Pension, the amount owed will usually be taken direct from your benefit or pension. Page top Can I appeal against the decision to make a deduction from earnings order?
Yes, you can. However, your appeal can only be based on one or both of the following reasons:
- Our request does not have the correct information on it
- The payments made to you by your employer are not classed as earnings.
What other action can the Statutory Maintenance Service take if I don't make a payment?
Apart from taking child maintenance direct from your earnings or your pension, we can:
- refer the case to a debt-collection agency
- use the courts to claim any child maintenance you owe.
We will give plenty of warning if we are going to take court action. Taking action through the courts is costly and you could end up paying more money, having your driving licence confiscated or even going to prison. However, before we take this action, we always take account of:
- the welfare of your children
- your needs
- the needs of the parent with care
- any hardship you tell us about.
If you stop working for your employer, become unemployed or change jobs, you must tell us as quickly as possible.
To find information about the court action we can take:
You can find more information about our powers to make sure you pay:
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