How to Collect Child Support From a Lump Sum Workers Comp Settlement

My question involves a child custody case from the State of: New Hampshire

Good Afternoon,

I was recently advised by a family member of the father of my children about him receiving a "large sum of money" and legally changing his name to "try to hide it" from me.

We have had many years back and forth & most recently in March 2016 he was claiming to be disabled and having no income so his support was lowered to the minimum of $50 per month (total for our 2 children together.) In the past I have waived arrears, agreed to much lower than standard guidelines for support & even volunteered him the ability to claim our youngest on taxes. I do not want to break him or leave him unable to support himself, I would just like him to contribute something to the very expensive cost of raising our children. I have always been blessed with the ability to hold a full time job that makes at least enough for me to provide the basic needs of our children. I am technically very poor and go some months not being able to pay the full amount of bills so I can buy food, but we have never had to be homeless or other really low situations.

I'm a very good speaker and have always represented myself in court & have always had primary custody of the children. He has always had liberal visitation, but he chooses not to see the kids. It was very sporadic when they were younger, but the past several years he has been nonexistent. Last year he saw them two times. I've paid for food & entertainment for his past visits, drive the kids to and from him if he didn't have transportation, etc.

This is our back story. My current situation & question involve him lying to the judge & hiding money to get out of paying reasonable support & any advice on how I should proceed would be much appreciated.

After his family member advised me of the money & name change info I started researching & found public records & proof that he legally changed his name (which I don't care either way, but it shows that he is trying to hide something in my opinion.) I was also able to procure 10+ pages of information from the Department of Labor public records that he was awarded a $50,000 workers comp settlement and TEN days later in court he told the judge that he was still waiting for appeals procedures & was receiving no income. That was in March 2016. Then subsequently we had a status hearing 4-5 months later where he again told the judge there was "no change in financial status." He lied. I have the proof. I'm just not sure how to bring this up in court. Should I just do a modification, should I try to get legal help from pro-bono...or what are the other options? I realize he has had almost a year and may have spent the majority of the money, so I am not banking on getting it, but I'm appalled that he would go to such lengths to keep from supporting our kids.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thank you.

If the money was distributed almost a year ago, your options are the same as with any other money that is in his possession -- you need to find out where the money is (if any is left) and get a court order to garnish the money from the account where it is located.

If you have been represented in court during prior proceedings, then you should speak to your lawyer. If not, you should have a pretty good sense of how good you are at figuring out court procedures and representing yourself in court -- but I'm not going to discourage you from getting a lawyer, particularly given that you have apparently not had much success collecting money from your ex.