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How do courts enforce a child custody order?

| Oct 24, 2018 | Spousal and Child Support

Imagine that you and your children have benefited from court-ordered child support payments for years, but suddenly, the father of your children doesn’t want to send the money anymore. Now, you’re struggling to make financial ends meet for your family and you don’t know what to do. Fortunately, the law is on your side.

A parent who refuses to pay child support in contravention to a court-ordered child support award will be in contempt of court. In fact, police could arrest and jail a parent who is delinquent like this, but the preferred method of enforcement is not jail time because that would interfere with the parent’s ability to pay. Rather, district attorneys are more likely to employ the following enforcement strategies:

  • Garnishment of wages
  • Seizing of property
  • Suspension of an occupational license
  • Suspension of a business license
  • Revocation of a driver’s license
  • Denial of a passport in cases where over $2,500 or more worth of child support is owed.

The sooner the child support recipient notifies authorities of delinquent payments the more likely that parent is to get paid. After all, when the bills pile up, it will get increasingly more difficult for the delinquent parent to get back up to speed with payments. This debt cannot be erased through bankruptcy or by other means, but that does not mean the delinquent parent will have the financial means to get current.

If you’re currently struggling financially because the other parent of your children is not paying his or her court-ordered child support obligations, learn more about your legal rights and options now.

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