Collecting Child Support from Florida DOR

[lyric]

My question involves child support in the State of: Florida. For the past 17months I have been unable to collect child support from the Florida DOR. I have been told that I cannot collect child support since the father has overpaid, although he has not. This issue is a bit complicated.

Here is the background: I live in Virginia and opened a case here in 2002. The child custody and order originated in Florida. I had been getting child support. He was ordered to pay $246 monthly although I would get it in spurts. In October 2007 all child support payments stopped. After contacting my case worker in Virginia she called Florida CSE. After eight months she was told that during an audit in 2003, it was discovered that the father made an overpayment of $2668 in 2002.

This payment was sent to NY where I had lived until 2001. NY did not disperse the amount of money to me as the payment was an error and was informed by Florida that the money should have gone to another case (I don't know whose). NY sent the payment back to Florida but there is no documentation by Florida stating that the money was received. The payment records of Florida looks very odd and I presented them to a financial advisor. He also compared them to payment records from NY and VA. There were huge deductions taken off of arrears without explanations with the exception of the $2668. These deductions made it appear as though the father has overpaid although he is actually in arrears. There wasn't any reason for payments to go to NY when I have been receiving payment in VA. Florida had all my updated information.

I was told that my child support payments were to resume in September 2008since the $2668 would be compensated at that time.This has not happened. I recently received a letter stating that the father is still being credited with $780. This is six months later. Now no one is telling me an exact number that he supposedly overpaid. There is definitely an error somewhere and no one is looking into it. I have now gone without any current child support totalling $4182 and I don't see an end in sight. This seems like basic math. I have more than compensated the amount in question.

Yesterday I was looking up information regarding the child support enforcement recovery 12E-1.022. The DOR is to notify by mail the custodail parent that there has been an overpayment. The written notice of overpayment must state a) amount of overpayment b) date of overpayment c) the obligee is required to repay the overpayment. None of this was done in a timely manner. There is also g) if obligee does not repay, sign a repayment agreement, or respond to the dept, 25% of child support will be withheld from future collections. Well 100% is being withheld from my case. I was also supposed to be able to respond in a timely manner to get request a reconsideration but since this information was not passed along until six years later. I don't know what to do. I have asked for FL to give proof that I had received these funds without a response. How do I get a correction made and how do I get current child support to resume? Any advice will be of great help.

[Mr. Knowitall]

Are you in Florida? In the county where the support order was issued? If so, and you don't think things are being handled properly, bring an order with the court. If you aren't comfortable doing that yourself, can't figure out what to do, or distance makes self-representation impractical, retain a lawyer to assist you.

[lyric]

Thanks for responding Knowitall. This has been very frustrating. The order originated in Florida. I live in Virginia. My caseworker in Virginia hands are basically tied. Florida has provided very little info and what they have provided was useless. The caseworker and her supervisor here said they have never heard of a case being so strange. I think I will have to retain an attorney to sort through this mess.