Changes in life such as a divorce can turn you into a single parent within the blink of an eye. In most divorce cases, an agreement is reached between the two parties about who will pay child support, for how long and for a set amount. When the payments are not made, or stop being made, the intended recipient can use different methods to acquire back payments.
If the amount of money owed to you is in the thousands of dollars, you can request the court that issued the child support order to place a lien on the other parent’s property.
If a lien on the debtor’s property does not work, you can look into wage garnishment. The employer of the debtor will notify the employee that wage garnishment will begin on a set date. This gives the employee enough time to either issue the overdue payments or risk having his paycheck reduced automatically by the employer. The money is then sent to the recipient of the child support.
Many times these first two methods are unsuccessful in acquiring the amount of money owed in back child support. If this is the case in your situation, you can petition the court to have the other parent’s licenses suspended. The licenses that can be suspended include professional, driver’s, hunting and fishing.
The government is also known to report the debtor, and the amount of back child support, to the credit bureaus so the debt is placed on the subject’s credit report, hurting his or her credit score.
Dealing with child support payment issues in New Hampshire can be confusing, difficult and stressful. An experienced family law attorney can help you acquire back child support payments so you can properly care for your children.
Source: FindLaw, “Enforcement and Collection of Back Child Support,” accessed Aug. 11, 2017
