When you are responsible for co-parenting a child from separate households, it can be complicated to say the least. Managing schedules, school, and the holidays flawlessly is the hope for most parents who share a child custody or visitation of their child. Sometimes, despite a parent’s best attempts, a co-parent responsible for child support becomes in arrears, or late, with their child support payments. Let’s say this parent moves out of Tennessee while in a position of delinquency, what are the custodial parent’s options?
Under the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act (UIFSA), parents and children who have become victims of missing child support payments of an out-of-state parent can enforce the child support modification order. There are a few ways to do this. If the state of Tennessee has jurisdiction over the parent who has failed to pay, the court can impose the enforcement of the child support on the delinquent parent. If the court-ordered state does not have jurisdiction, the state where the parent currently resides can take over jurisdiction of those payments once requested.
Besides UIFSA, it is also a federal crime for a parent to refuse to pay child support to another parent living out of state. This means there can be additional repercussions for parents who refuse to pay child support.
Child support is granted to a custodial parent for a reason. That reason is due to the significant costs associated with raising a child and because it is in a child’s best interests to receive financial aid from both of their parents.
For those who are suffering from delinquent child support payments, there are legal options available. While a parent may be able to dodge payments temporarily, eventually Tennessee law, or even federal law, will catch up with that parent. These laws have been enacted to help parents get the child support that they are owed, for the benefit of their children.
Source: FindLaw, “Enforcement of Child Support: FAQ’s” Accessed February 14, 2016
