What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? New York. In January 2009, my girl friend and I had concieved a child. The following March, we broke up but remained friends, and she delivered our daughter in September 2009. She was getting public assistance for a while and was told that since we were not together, and my daughter lived with her instead of me, it would be best for her to persue a child support case against me. In November 2010, we both went to court and I was ordered to pay child support. I have been paying it since then and I currently still am. A month after the hearing, we decided to give it another shot and we started dating again. In February 2011, we began living together and have been ever since. However, New York Child Support has been making me pay child support even though my daughter, my girlfriend and I was living under the same roof. I have been searching their website to see if they can legally make me pay child support and I can't find anything. Are they allowed to do this?
Because she was getting public assistance, she was required to cooperate with child support. Establishing an order is one way the state works to get both parents to support their children. If Mom received cash PA, then it was likely she may have been required to participate in job search activites while she received the help.
Did you both report to CSED that you has reunited and were living together as a family? Were you added to Mom's case as a household member? Did she report that you were living under the same roof? Or did she continue to recieve benefits as a single mom with an absent parent? (This is important.)
If she reported to her welfare case worker AND the child support caseworker, then it is
possible that she could also have requested that the current charging no longer be enforced. However, the arrears that accumulated while she was on state aid, are owed to the state, and they will continue to enforce collection of them.
In any event, the money you pay would simply cycle back into the home in about a week. And you still get credit for the payments made. Is there a reason that's a bad thing???
I apologize, I left that out. They had me paying $12.50 a month for the ammount that I owed them, plus my regular $25 child support payment. At the same time, she didn't begin getting child support payments after the adjudicator ordered me to pay it. So how could I have owed them anything? At the same time, why haven't they told me this?
Becasue the arrears that were owed went back to the date the state first filed for child support against you.
An example:
Mom and Dad (unmarried) have baby in June. Dad leave in August and Mom applies for PA in September.
Courts and timelines being what they are the matter doesn't get heard until January. CSED is asking that the court enforce back to the application/referral date in September. Because the state took care of the child from September on, the state will ask that the absent parent be required to repay the State that money (Or a portion thereof, depending on ability to pay and guidelines.)
And the courts order ongoing support in the amount of $25.00/mth and order a judgment balance of $500 owed to the state for the months that the custodial parent received cash public assistance.
So even if you and Mom are back together as a family,and Mom has requested that current charging not be enforced, you would still owe the state those arrears.
Make sense?
