Children don't deserve to suffer when parents are no longer together and that is why child support is ordered. This court order carries serious consequences for parents who fail to pay and knowing what might happen is vital. Read on to find out what might happen if you fail to meet your child support obligation.
Child Support Orders
You and the co-parent of your child are both responsible for providing a safe and supportive home for your child. The parent who makes the most money, however, is usually ordered to provide more financial support than the other parent. Court orders must be taken seriously because you can face legal action and other unpleasant consequences if you get behind on the payments. While your relationship with the other parent may be cordial, it's not up to that parent to pursue the matter. By failing to pay child support, you are violating a court order and you could be charged with a crime – contempt of court. See below for some other ways the system punishes those who fall far behind on their child support payments.
Garnishment of Wages – Child support enforcement agencies can file garnishment actions with your employer and have a certain sum of money automatically deducted from your pay before you get it. The amount might be the same as the original ordered amount or up to a certain percentage of your salary.
Suspension of Driver's License – The ability to legally drive is important and getting stopped while driving without a valid license could mean criminal charges and getting your vehicle towed. You can have not only your driver's license suspended for back child support obligations, but you might also find certain occupational licenses and fishing and hunting licenses suspended.
Real Estate Liens – If you own property, liens can be placed on it. Once a lien is in place, the property cannot be sold or used as collateral until the child support debt is settled. Liens can also be placed on vehicles, recreation vehicles, and boats.
Tax Refund Seizure – If you expect a sum of money from the IRS, you might never get it. The refund is automatically applied to any arrears child support.
Jail Time – Since few can pay their obligation from behind bars, an arrest usually results in a release on bail. Some egregious non-payers can spend quite a bit of time in jail, however.
If you are behind on your payments, take action. Speak to a child support lawyer about having the order antlered to a more reasonable amount for you.
Share11 November 2019
Divorce is never an easy situation. For fathers, it can be even more stressful because it is more difficult to obtain custody of the kids. Having gone through a divorce myself, I learned quite a bit about the additional steps that fathers should go through to ensure that they have a fair chance at gaining custody of the kids. My site is filled with the tips and advice that I received from my lawyer and other fathers that have gone through the same thing. Hopefully, what you learn on my site will help you achieve the outcome that you hope for.
