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Support order with arrears

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GinAA

Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? IN

I just received a forwarded email from my lawyer that my EX had sent to her stating that his current income witholding order for CS could not be modified due to him having arrears. We have not had the CS calculated since 1999 and I think he is saying they can't raise his CS because he owes arrears. I have looked at the IN CS guidelines and see nothing about this.

Is there something I'm missing? Oh, he also thinks that if he can prove he was unemployed during the times he did not pay support that it will be forgiven.

Thanks.
 


CSO286

Senior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? IN

I just received a forwarded email from my lawyer that my EX had sent to her stating that his current income witholding order for CS could not be modified due to him having arrears. We have not had the CS calculated since 1999 and I think he is saying they can't raise his CS because he owes arrears. I have looked at the IN CS guidelines and see nothing about this.

Is there something I'm missing? Oh, he also thinks that if he can prove he was unemployed during the times he did not pay support that it will be forgiven.

Thanks.

The child support can always be modified, regardless of whether or not there are arrears on the case.

As far as forgiving a portion of the arrears for the time period where he was unemployed--there are two different scenarios that could happen.

One--if you were on any kind of cash public assistance (TANF) at the time, then those arrears would be owed to the state (up to the dollar amount of TANF funds you recieved.) That portion of the arrears balance could be forgiven by the CSA as part of deal they make to get the non-custodial parents to pay. (ex: For every dollar the ncp paid toward the current obligation, the State would forgive a dollar in Public Assistance arrears.)

Two-- If you were not on any kind of cash public assitance, then those arrears are owed to you--and only you have the right to forgive them.

Best of luck :)
 

GinAA

Member
The child support can always be modified, regardless of whether or not there are arrears on the case.

As far as forgiving a portion of the arrears for the time period where he was unemployed--there are two different scenarios that could happen.

One--if you were on any kind of cash public assistance (TANF) at the time, then those arrears would be owed to the state (up to the dollar amount of TANF funds you recieved.) That portion of the arrears balance could be forgiven by the CSA as part of deal they make to get the non-custodial parents to pay. (ex: For every dollar the ncp paid toward the current obligation, the State would forgive a dollar in Public Assistance arrears.)

Two-- If you were not on any kind of cash public assitance, then those arrears are owed to you--and only you have the right to forgive them.

Best of luck :)


I have not been on public assitance of any kind so that scenario won't fly.

He has tried to bargan with me to forgive the arrears in exchange for something else. I have never entertained the thought.

I did find out that he is wanting my financial information so that he can do his own CS worksheet. Since he has a lawyer now I'm not going to respond to his requests.

We are waiting on the new court date and my lawyer is trying to set up a meeting so we can get this resolved without needing to go to court.

Thanks.
 

LdiJ

Senior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? IN

I just received a forwarded email from my lawyer that my EX had sent to her stating that his current income witholding order for CS could not be modified due to him having arrears. We have not had the CS calculated since 1999 and I think he is saying they can't raise his CS because he owes arrears. I have looked at the IN CS guidelines and see nothing about this.

Is there something I'm missing? Oh, he also thinks that if he can prove he was unemployed during the times he did not pay support that it will be forgiven.

Thanks.

There is nothing in the IN CS guidelines that would lead anyone to believe that child support could not be modified while he has arrearages. There is also nothing in the CS guidelines that would allow anyone to believe that arrearages for periods of unemployment would be forgiven.

However, sometimes judges will reduce arrearages as an encouragement for someone to get caught up. Its pretty rare however.
 

GinAA

Member
There is nothing in the IN CS guidelines that would lead anyone to believe that child support could not be modified while he has arrearages. There is also nothing in the CS guidelines that would allow anyone to believe that arrearages for periods of unemployment would be forgiven.

However, sometimes judges will reduce arrearages as an encouragement for someone to get caught up. Its pretty rare however.

Thanks LdiJ! I had read through those guidelines over and over and couldn't find anything. I just wanted to be sure I wasn't missing anything.

We will have to see if we can settle this without going to court but I understand that he is trying to get some things from me that we have already discussed and he knows I wont agree to them.
 

GinAA

Member
Pending Unemployment

My ex and I, through counsel, had come to an agreement about arrears and increasing the support in accordance to the worksheet. I have my paperwork from my lawyer signed and ready to return to her when I recived an email from my ex stating that he will be unemployed as of October 1st and he will be instructing his lawyer to stop the modification that we have both agreed to.

Can he prevent me from filing the modification documents that we both have agreed to because he may be unemployed in October? He works as a military contractor inside the military. He must bid on jobs and usually does get awarded one.

Also, he is to be deployed for a year in March 2011. If he cannot or chooses not to find employment by then, can a future order be put into place that when he deploys and is being paid full time, the agreed upon support and arrears will be paid through the military through payroll deductions?

I fear he will drag this out till he is deployed then it will be another year before anything can be done.

Thanks.
 

GinAA

Member
There is nothing in the IN CS guidelines that would lead anyone to believe that child support could not be modified while he has arrearages. There is also nothing in the CS guidelines that would allow anyone to believe that arrearages for periods of unemployment would be forgiven.

However, sometimes judges will reduce arrearages as an encouragement for someone to get caught up. Its pretty rare however.

Thanks LdiJ but I had updated and asked another question with the new headding of Pending Unemployment.

I just need to know if he can stop the agreed upon modification because he may be unemployed in the future.
 

LdiJ

Senior Member
My ex and I, through counsel, had come to an agreement about arrears and increasing the support in accordance to the worksheet. I have my paperwork from my lawyer signed and ready to return to her when I recived an email from my ex stating that he will be unemployed as of October 1st and he will be instructing his lawyer to stop the modification that we have both agreed to.

Can he prevent me from filing the modification documents that we both have agreed to because he may be unemployed in October? He works as a military contractor inside the military. He must bid on jobs and usually does get awarded one.

Also, he is to be deployed for a year in March 2011. If he cannot or chooses not to find employment by then, can a future order be put into place that when he deploys and is being paid full time, the agreed upon support and arrears will be paid through the military through payroll deductions?

I fear he will drag this out till he is deployed then it will be another year before anything can be done.

Thanks.

If you have an attorney handling this, ask your attorney. He may have a basis for rescinding his agreement and if he is truly going to be unemployed, he might even get the CS temporarily reduced...then you would really have a problem when he gets deployed.

You won't necessarily need him to agree to income withholding, but its something you should get ordered ASAP.
 

GinAA

Member
If you have an attorney handling this, ask your attorney. He may have a basis for rescinding his agreement and if he is truly going to be unemployed, he might even get the CS temporarily reduced...then you would really have a problem when he gets deployed.

You won't necessarily need him to agree to income withholding, but its something you should get ordered ASAP.

I have the modification paperwork ready to file its just something that we agreed to so he was going to sign it to.

I will wait to hear from my lawyer tomorrow. I was just wanted to be prepared for the bad news. I always get bad news in this matter.
 

mistoffolees

Senior Member
There is nothing in the IN CS guidelines that would lead anyone to believe that child support could not be modified while he has arrearages. There is also nothing in the CS guidelines that would allow anyone to believe that arrearages for periods of unemployment would be forgiven.

However, sometimes judges will reduce arrearages as an encouragement for someone to get caught up. Its pretty rare however.

No, but it's trivial and completely legal - if the two parties agree - to simply payor pay the arrears and get a receipt and then payee returns the money to him as a gift (assuming it's not large enough for gift taxes to kick in).

If there's a very large amount, they could do it a little at a time.
 

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