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Is Your Child’s Other Parent Failing to Make Child Support Payments?
If your ex isn’t making the child support payments that the court has ordered, or if you can no longer pay the child support that the court has ordered you to pay, you’ll need the advice and services of a South Jordan child support attorney, and you must contact that attorney at once.
If you’ve been ordered by a Utah court to make child support payments, making those payments is in your child’s best interests – and your own best interests as well. If you can’t make the payments, you must ask the court to modify its child support order.
If you are not receiving the child support payments that are owed to you, a South Jordan child support lawyer will represent you and ask the court to issue an enforcement order on your behalf. In Utah, parents who fail to make child support payments face serious legal penalties.
What Should You Know About Child Support in Utah?
In every state, a court may order a noncustodial parent to make regular child support payments, but all Utah parents are legally obligated to provide for a child’s housing, education, healthcare, and living expenses until the child turns 18 or finishes high school – whichever comes later.
In 2021, more than four million parents in the United States received child support payments. The average monthly payment that year was $441. But if you are not receiving the child support payments that you should be receiving, you’re not alone.
The U.S. Census Bureau reports that about thirty percent of the parents who should receive child support receive nothing, and more than half don’t receive the full amount that a court has ordered.
Why is Child Support So Important?
When a parent does not make court-ordered child support payments, the other parent could face financial hardship, especially if that parent depends on child support payments to care for the child. Child support is typically used for:
- living expenses such as utilities
- clothing, food, and rent or mortgage payments
- transportation costs
- educational and medical expenses
Not Receiving Child Support? Take These Steps
If child support payments are not being made, talk to the noncompliant parent, find out why the payments aren’t being made, and try to come up with a plan that will meet the child’s needs and be approved by the court. Your child support lawyer can help you negotiate with the other parent.
If the other parent is uncooperative, your South Jordan child support attorney can send that parent a notice that explains the child support enforcement procedure and provides a timeline for compliance.
What is the Child Support Enforcement Act?
Non-paying parents are “in arrears” when they do not pay child support. What they owe is called “arrearages.” The Child Support Enforcement Act is a federal law that authorizes the states to collect arrearages and impose on non-paying parents penalties which may include:
- garnishing the parent’s wages
- freezing the parent’s bank accounts
- intercepting the parent’s tax refunds or unemployment insurance
- placing a lien on the parent’s home or other property
- suspending the parent’s driver’s license
- if the parent holds a professional license, suspending that license
- filing a civil contempt order, which could lead to costly penalties
Any Action You Take Must Comply With Utah Law
Utah parents must comply with all divorce-related court orders. For example, if the other parent fails to make child support payments, you may not block court-ordered visitations. Instead, with your attorney’s help, you may seek to have the court enforce its child support order.
If you don’t allow court-ordered visits, the other parent may file a petition seeking to have the court enforce its visitation order. Utah courts are seldom lenient with a parent who does not pay court-ordered child support or blocks court-ordered visitation by the other parent.
If you are not receiving the child support that you’re owed, your South Jordan child support lawyer will recommend the best way to move forward legally, which will depend on the details of your situation.
What if You Cannot Make Child Support Payments?
If you’ve been ordered to pay child support, you may have quite legitimate reasons for an inability to make the payments. For example, you may be injured or ill and unable to work, or your employer may have terminated you.
In any of these situations, you can’t simply stop making child support payments. Instead, you must ask the court for a modification of the child support order. If you need to make that request to the court, a Utah child support attorney will help you.
When Will the Court Modify a Child Support Order?
Child support arrangements may be modified by the court – when a parent requests a modification – if there is a significant change of circumstances in the lives of either parent or the child or children. In Utah, a significant change of circumstances may include but isn’t limited to:
- A parent becomes unemployed, demoted, or accepts a new position.
- A parent is injured and is temporarily or permanently unable to work.
- A parent remarries or has a new child with another partner.
- A parent relocates to another jurisdiction, state, or nation.
- A parent is sent to prison, jail, or some other residential institution.
Why Should You Choose RCG Law Group?
When you need child support, and you’re not getting it, or you need to have a child support order modified, the child support attorneys at RCG Law Group are here to help. It doesn’t matter how complicated your situation is. We can help you bring the matter to its best possible resolution.
RCG represents clients in South Jordan and the greater Salt Lake City region. Our attorneys handle divorces, visitation, child support, and child custody disputes, and the modification and enforcement of court orders. We know how to resolve the most complicated family law disputes.
To learn more about child support enforcement and modification, promptly schedule a consultation with a Utah family law attorney at RCG Law Group by calling 385-503-3663. Your first consultation with the RCG legal team is offered with no cost or obligation.
