Legal Child Support
With the divorce rate at over 50% with respect to today's marriages, how can we protect the children from this legally binding union from suffering undue consequences as a result of marriage failures? The legal child support system guarantees the financial support up to the age of twenty-one of the children of divorced parents. One might wonder just how closely the legal system follows up on reported violations of the laws child support payment process.
A certain state law enforcement officer served twenty years in the protection of citizens from violent felons. He married his wife in 1986 and the couple had their first child in 1987. As is the case in over half the marriages today, their relationship faltered and, despite separation help in 2000, the marriage ended in divorce the following year. Their custody hearing was unremarkable and it was carried out according to the new child support laws and child visitation guidelines, including custody guidelines, child custody guidelines.
A visitation attorney, who was also a legal aid for child support lawyer armed with custody statistics and backed by the laws for child support, was present at the proceeding. The attorney explained the child visitation laws to the father of the child, and arranged the child visitation schedule in accordance with the child support order definition.
Both parties left the proceedings satisfied that they were able to work out an arrangement which had their son's best interest at heart. The father had the child support funds, as set by the child support table, taken directly from his bi-weekly check and sent to his ex-wife. Other than some miscommunication with visitation, there were no real issues until a situation developed in 2004.
The father started to suffer some physical ailments which precluded him from performing his job duties. When his condition worsened, he took a leave of absence from work, with pay, while he underwent extensive physical therapy. When the therapy did not ameliorate the condition to the point where he could perform his duties, an arrangement was worked out whereby he would retire with half pay plus disability benefits. He was still ten years away from receiving social security benefits, so he felt this was his best option. This new arrangement began in March of 2005.
Meanwhile, he had remarried and finances were tight. He failed to follow up on the child support payments as he presumed there had been no change in the arrangements. His son, now of college age, was accepted to Bentley College in Massachusetts, and the child started college in September, 2005. The father became financially strapped as bills began to mount for the three step- sons.
He and his ex-wife stopped communicating about in 2004, and the father had no idea that when he stopped getting his regular paychecks from the state as a full-time employee, the child support payments stopped going to his ex-wife. In December 2006, the father received official notification from the courts that he was considered a deadbeat father, and he owed $12,000 toward his son's college tuition.
The father was stunned since he had never checked on the matter when he retired, and he presumed the payments were still being forwarded to his wife. He had no savings since the disability and retirement checks went on the rent and food. He had no extra funds with which to take care of this situation so he sought advice legal child support from a child support training attorney.
With regard to child custody advice, the attorney informed the father that new child support law states that modifications in child support payments can be effected if there is a change in a parent's income. Since the father's income was greatly reduced when he retired, the child support payments could have been modified. However, since he made no official court motion to have the payments reduced, the payments stood as they were and he needed to forward the back payments.
Since his son was now in college, the legal child support age for which the father was financially responsible was 21 years of age. His wife utilized help legal child support assistance and received agency services legal child support in collecting back child support.
His ex-wife was hounded by the school for payment, and she initiated court proceedings in order to get the child support money. The father was unable to meet the court-ordered requirements of the judge and in March, 2007, this multi-decorated law enforcement official was remanded to prison for two weeks for non-payment of child support.
The father could have avoided the catastrophic chain of events if he had taken some precaution and researched the self help programs available on both the state retirement system and the relevance of retirement in relation to child custody benefits. There are self help online websites designed specifically for the purpose of providing assistance in the child custody area.
The father could have downloaded information on such topics as: child support payment calculator; state child support calculator; child custody form; joint custody laws, (although they were not applicable in this instance); ensuring legal child support advice; legal child support help; and legal child support services.
Since the legal financial responsibility for the support of his child rested squarely on his shoulders, it was incumbent for him to take ownership of this situation. The use of the self help materials with regard to divorce legal help issues would have saved this man his dignity, his family, his life!