How Do I Enforce The Other Parent To Pay Child Support?

The court ordered the other parent to pay a specified monthly allotment for child support, but the other parent has either refused to pay, or they pay haphazardly—late and only seldomly is the payment for the full court ordered amount. What do you do? It’s not as if you can march over to the other parent’s house and bang on the door for the check that they owe your (and their) child, especially if they have disappeared and you do not know where they live. In this situation, you need to work with an attorney and go through the California court system to have the child support order enforced through various means, such as wage garnishment or license revocation.

Enforcement Methods

According to California Child Support Services, the following methods can be used to enforce a child support payment. Some of these methods act as punishment to entice the delinquent parent into paying, while others go after the funds that you are owed directly:

Wage garnishment
Bank and property liens;
Revocation of driver’s license or passport;
Revocation of professional license;
Interception of tax refunds;
Interception of lottery winnings; and
Civil contempt lawsuit.

Federal Parent Locator Services

Sometimes the non-paying parent simply disappears and cuts off all ties of communication with you, or does not reveal their location during phone calls or visitations with the child. Oftentimes, the parent has moved out of the state, rendering the California Courts system incapable of enforcing an order or garnishing wages. In cases such as these, custodial parents must rely on the Federal Parent Locator Services, which helps states in tracking down the non-paying parent’s location, and then enforces payment through similar methods such as wage garnishment, revocation of licenses, and tax refund interception.

Interest on Late Payments

Countless parents are owed years, or even a decade or more, of child support payments. Many of these parents have barely been able to scrape by over the years, working two jobs and taking on debt to keep their households afloat, all while the non custodial parent has been getting away with what is essentially theft. Thankfully, under California Civ. Pro. § 685.010, all late child support payments are privy to a ten percent annual interest rate. This adds up over the course of years. The ten percent per annum interest accrues starting on the first day of the month following the date the installment is due, or from the entry date of judgment.

Our San Jose Child Support Enforcement Attorneys Can Get Started On Your Case Today

There are few things as frustrating and heart breaking as a parent who refuses to support their child and the custodial parent who is raising them. If you are having difficulties with the paying parent, whether they are constantly paying late or too little, or they owe months or years of backdated child support payments, an attorney can help you make this situation right. To learn more, call all our experienced San Jose child support attorneys at Foster Hsu, LLP, today at 408-841-7200 for a case evaluation.

Resource:

acf.hhs.gov/css/resource/federal-parent-locator-service-information-for-families

https://www.fosterhsu.com/modifying-a-child-support-order-due-to-job-loss/