No hiding place
Some non-resident parents go to great lengths to avoid paying what they owe for their children. However,
new tracing tools are helping us get results, as this story highlights...
A non-resident parent from Somerset owed over £4,500 in unpaid child maintenance, dating back to October 2002. Even though a court had agreed that he owed this money and granted us a liability order, we couldn't get him to pay because we couldn't track him down.
In October 2006 we began using a new tool that lets us search information from credit-reference agencies to find out the addresses and employers of parents we've previously been unable to trace. It locates parents with financial arrangements such as insurance policies, mobile phone contracts, store cards and mortgages. We used it to find this non-resident parent.
Having traced his address, we also discovered that he owned his home and we took this information to the courts. They agreed to let us to put a charging order on the house, meaning that if he sold the property, we could collect the money he owed in child maintenance. We also warned him that we were going to register his debt on the Register of Judgements, Orders and Fines.
This proved enough to persuade the man to get in touch with us and he has agreed to pay what he owes over a 2-year period - which works out to be £45 per week.
