Ohio Child Support Question

[Mistangelique]

What is the name of your state? Ohio

A poster on another thread said that even though my income is included and not differentiated from my husband's on last years tax forms, they may still want to see them to make sure that changes haven't been made to avoid paying support.

We were notified in January via certified letter (wouldn't you figure it was stollen with my purse and we had to have another one mailed to us, so I don't have the original date) that my husband was being taken to court for child support for a child he had allegedly fathered 8 yrs. ago. My husband lost his job on Dec. 20th. The papers were stamped that they had been filed in November.... the 22nd if I remember correctly.

Now... that means that she can get back support from November, right? Will they penalize him for loosing his higher paying job in December? The papers had been filed but we'd not yet been notified... I know we need to talk to an attourney, but legal aid won't help us and we can't afford one any other way. THe little savings we had just went to fix the vehicle we share, which is neccesary to get us to work.

My family is drowning already. I know that my husband must support this innocent child, but I'm terrified of what it's going to do to us. I have disconnects on my utilities, we bought our trailer (it's a 1965, not worth much) with a loan on my step-father in law's credit card and we are now not able to make the payments we promised due to my husband's drastic decrease in wages... and that won't even be taken into account for our expenses because it's already in our name and we are just paying off a relative, right? My wages are being garnished %30 for stupid debt from attempting to put myself through college. Our wages to not cover our bills... and soon we will have less. I don't know what to do.

Before anyone steps in to say we deserved this, should have thought of it before we made another family, my husband was never told that he fathered this child. He is 7 yrs. old and his mother was married at the time. When they divorced, her ex must have been paying support, because they just had paternity tests done in September. This woman cheated my husband out of 7 yrs of his first son's life... and now we'll have to pay for it... these are years he will never be able to get back even if he does petition for visitation. He's not sure he's going to because she's remarried, we don't know for how long, and we really don't know anything about their situation. We'd never lie to the child, but he may think of her current husband as his dad... or maybe her ex-husband is still in the picture. What IS in the best interest of this boy? I would appreciate any advice. Everyone is telling us not to contact her, to let it all go through the court... but their situation would defenitly effect our decisions on visitation issues.

Also, if her ex-husband paid child support for a child that wasn't his, can't the court order her to repay it? If so, THAT burden wouldn't fall on us too, would it?

And the fact that she passed the child off as her husband's... and my husband was a minor at the time... I have no idea. I need real legal council. I don't know what to do.

 

[Mistangelique]

We already have established paternity, we know he is his child.

We want an attourney because there are circumstances that may work in our favor:
1)My husband was a minor and she was over 21 when this child was concieved. That's statutory rape, but she was either smart enough or lucky enough to wait until the statute of limitations had expired.
2)apparently she passed this child off as her husband's even though she knew it wasn't. That's fraud. Not only did it probably cost her husband a large sum of money, not to mention the emotional blow of finding out that the child you thought was yours for 7 years wasn't, but it also cost my husband 7 yrs of knowing his firstborn son.
3)Then there's the income issue, the fact that we're living well below the poverty level anyway. My husband was involuntarily terminated and is now making far less than he was. We're not on any public assistance right now, but if they take any more from us, we're not going to have a choice.

Now, despite ALL of this, we are not against supporting this child. It is his moral, and possibly his legal obligation. If we had sufficient funds, we would send him everything we could. THIS CHILD SHOULD NOT SUFFER BECAUSE OF THE ACTIONS OF EITHER OF HIS PARENTS. We would consider not filing for visitation if this child still has a father figure in his life and it was not seen as the best interest of the child for him to have to get to know another father at this point. We would never LIE to him about who his father is, but speaking from experience, sometimes life can be better without your biodad in it. My husband and I both come from that sort of family.

I'm not sure I understand your arguement about the ohio laws. I'm interested, if you don't mind explaining in more detail. You can email me if you'd like. My address is webmaster@upfromtheashes.zzn.com