How Can a Dad Avoid Child Support

[Jeffo]

My question involves child support in the State of: California

Hi,

I'll give you the short version of the story. When my wife and I married almost 10 years ago, she had a 13 month old daughter. The biological father denied paternity, so there was a court case opened. Paternity was established, but my wife did not ask for child support, even though she was only 17 at the time. She thought they would get married and be a family. He had other ideas. He agreed to voluntarily pay her $140 a month child support if she would agree not to file through the courts. This was in 1998.

Fast forward to 2009. We wanted to move to a town 36 miles away from bio dad. He sued us for primary custody. When he was threatening to sue us, my wife pointed out that he hadn't even paid his $140 a month child support in over 4 years and if he chose to sue for custody, she would pursue court ordered child support. Keep in mind this person makes good money. He owns a house, drives a $40k truck, owns a boat, etc. He lost his bid for custody and we moved. My wife filed for child support back in June. The CSEA has his name, address, phone number, employer, employer address, phone number, etc. He refused to fill out his income and expense paperwork, so the CSEA went to his employer for that info. They called a few weeks back and gave my wife a guideline amount of $894 a month.

At this point, the whole process seems to be stalled. The CSEA is telling us they have to wait for some papers that is attorney is filing before they can proceed, which leads to my question:

What possible tricks could he have up his sleeve? To me, it looks pretty straight forward. He makes good money, has had the same job for over 6 years and has lived in the same house since 2005. Is there any way he can get out of his obligation?

Thanks in advance for any responses.

[Xena]

My question involves child support in the State of: California

Hi,

I'll give you the short version of the story. When my wife and I married almost 10 years ago, she had a 13 month old daughter. The biological father denied paternity, so there was a court case opened. Paternity was established, but my wife did not ask for child support, even though she was only 17 at the time. She thought they would get married and be a family. He had other ideas. He agreed to voluntarily pay her $140 a month child support if she would agree not to file through the courts. This was in 1998.

Fast forward to 2009. We wanted to move to a town 36 miles away from bio dad. He sued us for primary custody. When he was threatening to sue us, my wife pointed out that he hadn't even paid his $140 a month child support in over 4 years and if he chose to sue for custody, she would pursue court ordered child support. Keep in mind this person makes good money. He owns a house, drives a $40k truck, owns a boat, etc. He lost his bid for custody and we moved. My wife filed for child support back in June. The CSEA has his name, address, phone number, employer, employer address, phone number, etc. He refused to fill out his income and expense paperwork, so the CSEA went to his employer for that info. They called a few weeks back and gave my wife a guideline amount of $894 a month.

At this point, the whole process seems to be stalled. The CSEA is telling us they have to wait for some papers that is attorney is filing before they can proceed, which leads to my question:

What possible tricks could he have up his sleeve? To me, it looks pretty straight forward. He makes good money, has had the same job for over 6 years and has lived in the same house since 2005. Is there any way he can get out of his obligation?

Thanks in advance for any responses.

It takes alot of time to get a CS order issued, especially when it is being done through a state CS enforcement agency. The only thing your wife can do is to wait, and keep in contact with the CSE. She should be sure to ask the caseworker to request that the order be retro back to the actual filing date.

No one can even guess what tricks Dad might have up his sleeve, however, I can tell you that he will not be able to get out of having a CS order issued.

Now, the sad reality is that even when the order is issued, if Dad is truly determined to not pay the CS and stupidly quits his job and disappears, it would be very difficult to collect any CS. So, the best thing to do will be to budget as if there isn't going to be any CS, that way if he does obeythe order, it will just be extra money instead of putting your household in the hole financially.

[Jeffo]

It takes alot of time to get a CS order issued, especially when it is being done through a state CS enforcement agency. The only thing your wife can do is to wait, and keep in contact with the CSE. She should be sure to ask the caseworker to request that the order be retro back to the actual filing date.

No one can even guess what tricks Dad might have up his sleeve, however, I can tell you that he will not be able to get out of having a CS order issued.

Now, the sad reality is that even when the order is issued, if Dad is truly determined to not pay the CS and stupidly quits his job and disappears, it would be very difficult to collect any CS. So, the best thing to do will be to budget as if there isn't going to be any CS, that way if he does obeythe order, it will just be extra money instead of putting your household in the hole financially.

Thanks Xena. I appreciate the response. Really, the money doesn't matter to us. We're just going to put it in a savings account for our daughter to use in case she needs money for extracarricular activities, etc. It will not ever be a part of the famliy budget.

I think my wife takes it so personally because she tried to give him grace for years and he turned around and tried to take her baby away from her. She has always allowed him more visitation than the court order. Any time he asked for anything over and above the court ordered visitation, she agreed, as long as he gave us prior notice and we didn't already have plans. Heck, she even agreed to him taking her to Hawaii for 10 days.

His big argument was that 10 years ago her father told him they didn't want any child support from him. This was when my wife was 17. I think that may be what he's arguing. Who knows with this guy? She took $140 a month from him because he was 18 and working part time when this originally started. As he moved up at work and got more and more increases, she never said a word about increasing the amount, because she knew our daughter was well taken care of. When he stopped paying altogether 4 years ago, she never mentioned it, as long as he kept up with his visitation and treated our daugher well. Even when she saw the expensive truck he was driving and the new boat, she never asked him for anything. Now, I think she feels it's time for him to step up and do his part, especially since he just put her through 6 weeks of hell with the custody case.

Hopefully this will work out for the best. At the end of the day, our daughter has everything she needs, regardless of what he may or may not contribute. I think she can live with that.

[Jeffo]

Just wanted to post an update. We got the proposed judgement in the mail on Wednesday. As it turns out, the CSEA assumed that his attorney would be asked to write the order after hearing, so they told my wife they were waiting to hear from his attorney. When my wife called them and told them that our attorney was instructed to prepare the order and we would fax them a copy right away, they said that was all they needed.

The proposed judgement is for $910 a month, starting on September 1st. I'm sure he'll try to fight it, but I have no idea on what grounds he would object to it.

Anyway, thanks for the response. It is defintely appreciated.