Child support questions

[Becki C.]

state: tennessee

my ex-husband's parental rights to our child were terminated in nov. 2003. at that time, he was in arrears to the tune of over $2,600.00. (in tennessee, if you are more than $500 in arrears, you're income tax refund can be intercepted and sent to the custodial parent). consequently, my ex's income tax refund was rerouted to me in march of 2004 in the amount of $933.00. he hasn't paid a penny since. he is currently a little more than $1700.00 behind. after a year unemployed and with me unable to find him, even with the assistance of court, i found out he went back to his previous job that had an active garnishment on him for the original child support order. since the termination of his parental rights, this original order had been reduced to an "arrears only" case. $171.69 is being removed from his check every two weeks starting july 23. my questions are these:

1. once my ex pays his outstanding debt, am i liable to contact the office (DHS) that sends me the checks and let them know?
2. is it my responsibility to notify the court of anything?
3. is it the responsibility of my ex to petition the court to send a new order to his employer saying the garnishment be stopped?
4. what do i do if i keep receiving money while the process of stopping his child support obligation is going on? ( a friend of mine told me that even though her husband had reached the end of his support obligation, his check was garnished twice more because it took that long to get to court to finalize all the details and prove he had fulfilled his support obligation).

thanks for any information given.

 

[tigger22472]

I'm assuming the garnishment is the through the state (CSE). They keep records of those things and will know when they shouldn't garnish any more. Yes it might take a bit to get it done. As far as if you get more there's also a question as to if your state charges intrest. Is the total you came up with your total or what CSE told you it was (INCLUDING intrest if applicable). The friend you mentioned, was she notified that she had been overpaid and had to refund the extra money or what came of her case? If you live in the same state you could expect the same result. You should not have to send them anything as they already have the case as an arrears only and will probably at the very least get his tax checks until the arrearage is paid off.

 

[Becki C.]

yes, the "total" i have is what CSE told me my ex still owes. i was concerned if i was overpaid and didn't send it back, then i would be in trouble. clearly, money that is overpaid doesn't belong to me and i was interested to know if there are any steps i need to take in case it was up to me to "verify" in some way that my ex is paid in full as far as our case goes. thanks for the info.

my friend was told (thru a CSE representative i assume) that if her husband wanted to retrieve the "overpaid" money from his ex that he could take her to small claims court and try to get it, as it was now considered a civil matter and not the "problem" of CSE once the ex got the support check. the overpayment totaled $1900.00. my friend and her husband didn't pursue it because they didn't know where his ex was living or if she even had a job. they just had to write it off. at least, they felt they had to. she said that she talked to CSE on more than one occasion, but never got the same person or the same answer two times in a row. one person said haul the ex to small claims court and yet another said that was just one of the consequences to be suffered when you have delays getting the proper paperwork finalized showing that no more support is owed. so who really knows?

 

[tigger22472]

That's just yet another example of CSE not working for the CP or the NCP. They can take the money and take too much but when they do it becomes a 'civil' matter and not their concern... GEEZ. (just for the record I'm a CP who's ex also just lost his rights and owes over 24,000 in arrearage, for anyone who wants to accuse me of not knowing what it's like )

My advice to you would be that if you get overpayment.. hopefully you're keeping records... for a little while giving your ex the chance to take measures.. After that I wouldn't worry about it. I would bet that most that are that far behind don't keep track of how much they take or records of it.