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Child Support and Bank Levies

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What is the name of your state? Oklahoma

It's been awhile since I've posted on here, so I'll give you just a little bit of background.

My husband is the ncp (I'm the stepmom) and he pays monthly child support that is drafted directly from his paycheck. He does owe back child support, because he acquired the debt from the very first day that it was set up through the CSED. He has paid his monthly child support since then, along with additional money each month (as calculated by the CSED) for the arrears.

Recently, I received a letter in the mail stating that my personal bank account was being levied because of his child support debt. I though this was odd because:

1. The letter said it was for failure to pay.
2. The bank account was in my name.

I called the bank first. They said that my dh's name was listed as a user on my bank account. I don't remember doing this, and I have had this savings account since before we were married, but somehow when we opened our joint checking account (which has been closed now for over two years) his name got added onto my savings account.

Next, my dh called the CSED. He asked about the letter and said that he has been paying on the child support as agreed. They advised him that they have instated a new system which does a sweep on all accounts in arrears and finds all bank accounts attached to the party and levies them.

The bank said the account cannot be closed due to the levy.

HOWEVER, since the bank account was only being used to direct deposit my military pay, I opened up another bank account through another bank with just my name on it. Now the money is being deposited to the new account. Here is my question:

Can I be sure that they will not levy my bank account. I made sure that it is in my name only, but can they somehow levy it just because I'm married to the owing party? I want to make sure this cannot happen. I've always known we should keep separate bank accounts, but am feeling uneasy about this since this happened. :confused:

Thanks for any help!

Stepmom&mom
 


jendenver

Junior Member
my sister went through this same thing, almost, in Colorado.

She got it reversed by getting ahold of the person at her credit union who handled the transaction. Usually it is a specific person or department. They were able to give her the name/number of child services contact (sounds like you already have this). When she explained to CS that it was a joint acct (you siad yours was in your name only, I know) CS gave her a fax # for the credit union to verify the account was a joint acct.

She had the credit union fax something to CS and within 10 minutes the $ had been returned to the acct.

Yes, their acct was joint, vs yours being solo, but your bank should be able to handle this in a similar fashion. In my sis's case, it was an error by the credit unions IT dept, they had reported the joint acct as in her husband's name alone.

And she was assured that no, CS couldn't get anything that was in her name alone.
 

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