There are many custodial parents and children in Montgomery, Tennessee, for whom monthly child support payments are very important in order to meet their day-to-day expenses. Therefore, when these custodial parents and children do not receive child support on time, they seek help from authorities to enforce the child support order. Recently, however, a number of questions have been raised about Tennessee’s efforts with child support enforcement. An earlier blog post discussed that particular situation.
According to existing laws, the Tennessee Department of Human Services is responsible for assisting those custodial parents who have child support issues. After receiving a complaint, the DHS contacts the non-custodial parent and uses a number of methods to recover child support. In some extreme cases, the DHS enlists the help of state law enforcement agencies. If required, the department can also recommend certain penalties for child support delinquents.
Montgomery parents may also be aware that child support issues are generally handled according to state laws. However, some child support delinquency cases involve parents and children living in different states and in those cases, there are a set of federal laws that may apply if the circumstances are exceptional. The primary objective of those federal laws is to discourage child support delinquency; however, the laws also have provisions for penalizing those non-custodial parents who do not pay child support willingly.
Tennessee courts do not order a non-custodial parent to pay child support in order to penalize that parent; the court orders child support to protect the best interest of the child. Therefore, it is necessary for people to understand how child support and a child’s best interest are related. In such situations, both custodial and non-custodial parents may speak with an experienced family law attorney. The attorney’s advice may help parents to reach a peaceful resolution of the child support dispute.
