What is the name of your state? Indiana My exhusbands current order of child support has ended but he still owes back child support. The judge signed a wage withholding for him at his place of employment and before it could be activated he quit his job. Now what do I do? After paying out 1100.00 to a lawyer and now nothing. What can I do to pursue this?
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Collecting Back Child Support
- Thread starter elaine60
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tigger22472
Senior Member
First what county is your order from? I've dealt with 4 in Indiana and it seems they are all different, however, I will tell you what a prosecutor told me from Indianapolis when he called me. He said CSE stops trying to collect once the child is 18. The monies are still owed until the youngest child is 28 but it then becomes up the parent to do it, which it sounds like you have already done anyways.
what do you mean, What do "i" do,He's the one that quit!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Minnesota
Child support will ALWAYS be his responsibility from what little you said...Get a life inspite of that, let him take care of his own responsibilities, starting with that one! That is not yours to pay, if that is what you are planning! Why can't people be decent human beings? I wish I knew...Make sure this relationship stops affecting you or your kids in..... lasting, ....negative ways...god speed
Minnesota
Child support will ALWAYS be his responsibility from what little you said...Get a life inspite of that, let him take care of his own responsibilities, starting with that one! That is not yours to pay, if that is what you are planning! Why can't people be decent human beings? I wish I knew...Make sure this relationship stops affecting you or your kids in..... lasting, ....negative ways...god speed
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elaine60 said:
It sounds like you got a judgement for the arrears and this should follow him wherever he goes until paid in full. Try to find out where he's now employed and give this information to the state or lawyer.....whoever's handling your case. The judge can sign a new wage garnishment order.
Collecting Child Support Reply
The county is Marshall in Plymouth Indiana. Sorry for so little detail. My youngest will soon be 19. He knew he was getting a wage withholding. He went back to selling real estate after holding down his last job for 5 years. Can I file a an order of contempt or go to the county prosecutor. I know he will be coming back to Indiana at some time in the future. He is living in Florida and if I file an order of contempt and he does return will they place him in jail and make him pay the back support. I know he has it and he has said that he will not pay it. He owes 3700.00 in arrears and I never went after him for it because I did not want friction because of my kids. They do not care anymore if I try to go after him. He has spent very little time in their lives. If they do find him in contempt can they then issue a warrant for him. I think it stinks that all that time I never did anything. He was up to 7000.00. I do not want to spend a lot more money but wondered if I could file myself?
The county is Marshall in Plymouth Indiana. Sorry for so little detail. My youngest will soon be 19. He knew he was getting a wage withholding. He went back to selling real estate after holding down his last job for 5 years. Can I file a an order of contempt or go to the county prosecutor. I know he will be coming back to Indiana at some time in the future. He is living in Florida and if I file an order of contempt and he does return will they place him in jail and make him pay the back support. I know he has it and he has said that he will not pay it. He owes 3700.00 in arrears and I never went after him for it because I did not want friction because of my kids. They do not care anymore if I try to go after him. He has spent very little time in their lives. If they do find him in contempt can they then issue a warrant for him. I think it stinks that all that time I never did anything. He was up to 7000.00. I do not want to spend a lot more money but wondered if I could file myself?
tigger22472
Senior Member
legalcuriosity said:WTF is THAT about??!!
I'm glad that I wasn't the only one confused.
tigger22472
Senior Member
legalcuriosity said:
Ok.. going to answer this and then answer the OP... CSE will no longer be involved with this issue. Once the youngest child is 18 CSE no longer actively pursues the case and it is up to the other parent to take care of the matters here in Indiana.
tigger22472
Senior Member
elaine60 said:
Right or wrong, this is how it works. First off yes he's in contempt and you can take him back to court if that is what you want to do. It's unlikely the prosecuter will get involved. First, have you ever used them to represent you? If not, basically you will probably be told too late now anyways because the children are no longer minors and because they hadn't handled your case. Rather then call, be put on hold, transferred to 10 zillion people try using this e-mail address for you local prosecutor in the child support division... curt@co.marshall.in.us I found that I was less stressed when dealing with them in e-mail and usually got more answers.
Problem number 2 for you is that he's also out of state... and that state is Florida. Rumor is, I've been told by a few caseworkers, that Florida is one of the worse states to try to get to work with people to get CS. Regardless that just adds to the problems.
Thirdly, even if you were to file contempt charges on him it is UNLIKELY that he will serve one single day in jail. Once the children reached passed 18 your case went to a simple arrears case only (here's where Indiana is tricky.. the law says CS can be owed until 21, but good luck finding a judge to enforce that, and there would have to be proven needs). While the support was still owed he could be charged with 'failing to support a minor' or some other little trick they can find. If he's ordered to go to court and doesn't and it's proved he knew about it and was served properly, he can be charged with 'failure to appear' but to get him charged now and put in jail isn't going to happen.
You also need to understand that since this is now an arrears case only you won't receive the weekly amount of money that the original order stated. What I mean is for instance my original order was for $113.00 a week. My ex is/was over 24,000 behind. Once it became an arrears case only he pays $30 a week, now days enough for a tank of gas.
It's not fun, or fair... but in the end you need to ask yourself if it's worth the stress it will cause you since you will have to be the one to find out where he works, and report that as well as addresses... etc. They don't do this stuff for you. Oh and yeah, it's unlikely to get a hold on taxes also once it is arrears only because it becomes a simple debt owed to you. It sucks, that's all there is to it.
LdiJ
Senior Member
There is another option. Its not one that I would normally recommend however it might work in this case since the arrearages are not dramatically high.
You might consider using a private child support collection agency. They will take a fairly high chunk of what they collect as their fee...but they will work darn hard to collect.
You might consider using a private child support collection agency. They will take a fairly high chunk of what they collect as their fee...but they will work darn hard to collect.
tigger22472
Senior Member
legalcuriosity said:
It really does. There are the NCP's that pay their support like clockwork and do everything right and have an evil ex that takes them to court every two seconds and they get raises and ETC. Then there are the ones that refuse to pay a dime. They will quit job after job, avoid being served for court, refuse to put anything in their name because it could be attached, all the while not supporting their children. The majority of the NCP's that are massively behind then stop all relationship with the children because it becomes about money for them. They don't want to have to pay the CS and they know if they tick off the CP enough they can call and have them caught. Here in Indiana, as in most states, it is required that the parents have phone numbers and addresses of the other parent (pretty much for visitation issues). An NCP who is determined not to pay isn't going ot comply with that, afraid that the CP will give it to CSE or whomever and have them served. It becomes a money issue. And lots of luck getting prosecutors and CSE to do anything even when it's not an arrears case when they live in the same state, let alone another.
When my ex was about 10,000 behind I gave CSE YET another address and phone number for him(it was not an arrears only then). They e-mailed me and told me that they called him and he refused to give them any useful information... NO? Really? I told them I wanted charges pressed on him. Their answer to me was that it was a lengthy process and that then the goal went from payment to punishment. I told them it didn't matter to me as I wasn't getting anything. They still refused, the next excuse being that I lived 1.5 hours away and they couldn't guarentee my presence in court. For the next 2 years, every three months they set up a court date. They had 2 addresses for my ex and I know he was living at them. Every 3 months the court date would come and go and he wasn't served so nothing could be done. In June 2004 my current husband adopted my children. On July 18 my ex went to court as amazingly enough he'd been served. He went over 4 years of paying a total of 1,000$ in support (only when they found I found out where he was working and then he'd quit 2 weeks later) and now pays 30$ a week to pay back the over$24,000 owed.
Sometimes at that point they get smart and realize or are told that the amount is extremely low and they figure that $30 a week going out is better then 130$ so maybe we don't have to hide so much. So a CP has to raise the children without support and even when it's owed it's even harder to get. It's sad to say but you know when CSE steps up the efforts? When you get really poor and you need state aid! Even then they do as little as possible but they at least try a little bit.
tigger22472
Senior Member
LdiJ said:
LDIJ....Years ago I considered using one of them and if I'm not mistaken you have to have a current order meaning you have to be due current monies. I could be wrong but that is what I was thinking. If that's the case then it wouldn't work here because there shouldn't be a current order, just an arrears order.. did that make sense?
tigger22472
Senior Member
LdiJ said:
That would be cool considering Indiana does have an SOL on support and the prosecutor I spoke to told me it was still owed, they just wouldn't do anything,
OP as Ldij said, this could be an option but they do take a chunk of it so it all depends on how important it is to you to get it and how much is owed. And just remember that it can cause a lot of stress for you so before really pursuing it evaluate that for yourself to see if it's worth it.The state is currently getting arrears from my ex and they do keep setting up court dates but of course my ex lives in the same town as the order so he goes because he's been 'properly served' but again it took over 2 years to get that. I truly believe he let himself get caught when he did believing that because the children were adopted the arrears went away. He went in July, got a continuance, went in Sept, was charged with contempt (nothing was done other then a wage withholding), went in Dec, and March and scheduled in June. The second they don't set up another court date I will see my last check I'm sure. To me that's fine... it's not worth the stress of even worrying with it, in fact I told CSE in January of 04 to stop trying.
Hey I found hIm!
Anyone reading my post before would realize that I was trying to figuare out what to do about getting arrearage from ex husband now that my kids are grown. Well I found the address of the place he is eorking at. Now what? Should I call the court house with his new place of employment or what? Need some advice here folks
Anyone reading my post before would realize that I was trying to figuare out what to do about getting arrearage from ex husband now that my kids are grown. Well I found the address of the place he is eorking at. Now what? Should I call the court house with his new place of employment or what? Need some advice here folks
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