Another “can you collect my child support” question… answer… we usually can…
Hello!
My name is Tammy and I am the mother of a 12 year old child. Her dad is over $30K behind in court ordered payments to me not including his share of her medical expenses which would equal at least another $3K.
Our court order is with the county of Santa Clara in California from when our daughter was about three years old. The current court order is based on her child care costs at that time plus $17 a month for “child support”. The total amount he is ordered to pay each month is approximately $1,370 per month. She is currently in private school, so the costs for that are very close to the child care costs for her when the order was set up. Neither of us has filed for a support order change since the original court order was put in place.
My questions are:
Can you work with me knowing that I am in Santa Clara County, CA?
If I were to contract you for help collecting the over $30K in back payments he owes me, would the full amount be collected or just the $17 per month considered “child support”?
I have an audit that was provided to me by the County that shows he is behind to me the full $30K plus. I also have copies of my court order, know where my ex lives, and how to contact him. He sees our daughter on a very regular basis and our co parenting relationship is very amicable despite the financial burden caused by the lack of payments from him over the last year and a half.
He is not working at a regular job, doesn’t file tax returns, and intentionally maintains a bank account balance below $250 so the state cannot take any money from his bank. I know that he has his own business that he is making an income from, however, he is not reporting any money he makes from this business. Are you able to collect from people in this situation?
His biological father passed away last year and left a house to my ex. There is a sale pending on the house, however, I have reason to believe the house was actually put in my ex’s mother’s name so that my ex could avoid being forced to pay back child support once the house is sold.
Are you able to assist with this situation at all?
My ex also has a child support order with the mother of his two older children. Their court order was put in place first, which is why the child support amount I was given by the County was only $17 a month. If you were to work on my case, would any of the money you were able to collect end up going to his ex wife since he is also behind to her?
If at all possible, I would prefer to communicate via email until my questions are answered please.
Thank you for any clarification you can offer. I look forward to hearing from someone soon.
Tammy
xxx
Hi Tammy
Thank you for the email. Your court order, as you explained it is a little different so I will answer this as best I can without seeing the document. If your order is for $17 per month and additional support is ordered at the rate of $1350+ a month, we can try to enforce the higher amount. It appears that he state is honoring the additional support since your arrears at this time are $30K.
We do work in the state of California; we have a good working relationship with the state. The difficultly I see in the case is that he is not working a garnishable income, meaning we would need to work out a payment arrangement with him and there is another open case in the state for child support. In many cases the state will divide any support that is paid by the non-custodial parent if multiple cases are registered at the state. We would need to find a way for support that we would collect on your behalf is credited directly to you and not the other custodial parent.
As for the house, if the home is registered to the non-custodial parent, there is a possibility of a lien being placed on it. I suggest that you check with the county property tax division to determine who the home is registered to. If he transferred the home to his mother, there would be no way for a lien to be placed on the home. Please do this quickly since you mentioned the sale is pending.
Please let me know if you have any other questions. It is worth a call to discuss your situation and see what can be done! At the very least I can provide more info to you.