What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? PA
Hello all... I've been a lurker on this forum for several years but this is my first post here. I have a rather sticky situation that I'm hoping to get some feedback on. I am strictly a novice (and somewhat intimidated) when it comes to legal matters, and as you will see, I have been involved in a situation for a number of years whose legalities I fully admit to having neglected. At this point, I'm just hoping that I can come up some kind of roadmap as to how to address these.
Here's my story....
My son was born in 1989 in NY -- I was 20 at the time. His mother and I have never married (CP has never married either) but we still have a good relationship to this day. In 1991, I was involved in a paternity hearing in NY at which a support order was entered. CP (custodial parent) was on public assistance (AFDC) at the time of my son's birth and at that time had another, older child (not mine) for whom she had never received any support (and for whom no support order existed at the time). My support order simply stated that I was to pay such-and-such an amount on a bi-weekly basis to the Clerk of the Court's office as well as provide for reasonable health care costs (I added my son to my health insurance as I was by this time working) -- that's pretty much it.
In late 1993, CP left AFDC and in writing to the enforcement office requested that the enforcement case against me in NY be closed (I have a copy of this letter). She then requested of me that I begin sending payments directly to her rather to the clerk's office (so that she would receive the full support amount rather than the $50.00/month "passthrough" from AFDC). In October 1993, I commenced support payments directly to the CP (and have not missed a single payment since then). CP and I have made upward modifications in the amount of support paid, but have done so outside of the legal system, hence no modifications to the original support order has ever been requested. The CP simply did not want to involve the legal system in my case, so I just went along with that (and gladly).
As for the past-due support owed to the state of NY, I fully paid this off in October 1996.
CP had another child in 1997 (again, not mine), for whom no support has ever been paid (supposedly because the father has a "criminal record", the matter was never pursued by the CP or any enforcement agency -- more on this later).
CP relocated to GA in 1998. I continued, as always and without fail, to mail the support checks directly to her, as she had requested in 1993. I have all of the cancelled checks in my files with which to prove this claim.
I relocated to PA in 1999.
In 2007, I mailed the Clerk's office in the NY county where the original order had been entered, requesting that copies of all paperwork related to the original case be mailed to me for my own recordkeeping.
In late 2007, to make a long story short, I had the unpleasant surprise of learning that the CP had received public assistance (TANF) in GA from 1998 to 2000 (in addition to my having paid her directly). A garnishment of my paycheck (along the lines of the amount in the original 1991 order) was commenced in PA but stopped after one month when the CP went
to her caseworker in GA and indicated that the non-TANF "arrearage" that they had on record was being forgiven by her. An enforcement officer from the CP's county of residence in GA sent me a letter indicating the the past-due support "arrearage" had been forgiven by the CP (using language that strongly implied that I had leaned on or harrassed the CP into doing so) and informing me that I was being tagged with a debt of $10,300 for "public assistance" that the CP had received "from April 1998 to October 2007". This in spite of the fact that I have yet to miss or be late on a child support payment (again, directly to the CP) in the twenty-plus years that I've been paying.
Because the original support order was issued in NY, whose laws specify that child support must continue to the age of 21, I kept on paying until my son reached at age and in fact continue to do so as he is currently a 22 year-old college student in GA.
As of today, the CP has never received any support from the fathers of her other two children, leading me to believe that the $10,300 amount (which I am still in the process of paying off) also somehow covers the obligations that two other men have never paid (in fairness, though, only one of them has been subject to an actual support order to date).
Despite all of this, the CP (who is a very good mother regardless) and I still have a good relationship, and I continue to send support (whose amount has actually been several times that orginally ordered for a number of years now as I have had a successful career) without fail while paying the state of GA for the public assistance arrearage via a garnishment whose amount is fortunately only 25% of what the original order called for me to pay (supposedly that is a legal guideline of some sort when it comes to welfare arrearages).
At this point, I have become very uneasy about what might happen when my son finishes college and the money is no longer coming in to the CP for the one minor child living at home for whom she has never received any support. I've already seen the havoc that can result when the legal aspects of a situation like this are ignored, so that was a definite lesson learned for me. Not to mention the concern lurking in the back of my mind that turning off the monthly checks might not be as easy I've always thought it will be
when the time comes.
So, speaking as a novice in the world of legalities (but someone who has always tried to do the right thing nonetheless), what would be the best course of action for me to follow to protect myself in a legal sense and to forestall anything like the horror story with GA (or worse) from ever happening again? In other words, how to make this entire arrangement "legitimate" in the eyes of the law? 20/20 being hindsight, I can now see several past intervals where it would have behooved me to pay attention to the legal side of things, but what's done is done and I'm just trying to focus on the here and now.
My question is -- what do I do now to protect myself? I realize that talking to an attorney is the obvious answer, but again, I'm just looking for any advice on how to present my case, what I can expect, and how common situations like these might be. Will I be laughed out of the place or is there something that a legal professional can do to help me?
Thanks for taking the time to read my story and for any feedback you can provide.
John in PA
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?
Hello all... I've been a lurker on this forum for several years but this is my first post here. I have a rather sticky situation that I'm hoping to get some feedback on. I am strictly a novice (and somewhat intimidated) when it comes to legal matters, and as you will see, I have been involved in a situation for a number of years whose legalities I fully admit to having neglected. At this point, I'm just hoping that I can come up some kind of roadmap as to how to address these.
Here's my story....
My son was born in 1989 in NY -- I was 20 at the time. His mother and I have never married (CP has never married either) but we still have a good relationship to this day. In 1991, I was involved in a paternity hearing in NY at which a support order was entered. CP (custodial parent) was on public assistance (AFDC) at the time of my son's birth and at that time had another, older child (not mine) for whom she had never received any support (and for whom no support order existed at the time). My support order simply stated that I was to pay such-and-such an amount on a bi-weekly basis to the Clerk of the Court's office as well as provide for reasonable health care costs (I added my son to my health insurance as I was by this time working) -- that's pretty much it.
In late 1993, CP left AFDC and in writing to the enforcement office requested that the enforcement case against me in NY be closed (I have a copy of this letter). She then requested of me that I begin sending payments directly to her rather to the clerk's office (so that she would receive the full support amount rather than the $50.00/month "passthrough" from AFDC). In October 1993, I commenced support payments directly to the CP (and have not missed a single payment since then). CP and I have made upward modifications in the amount of support paid, but have done so outside of the legal system, hence no modifications to the original support order has ever been requested. The CP simply did not want to involve the legal system in my case, so I just went along with that (and gladly).
As for the past-due support owed to the state of NY, I fully paid this off in October 1996.
CP had another child in 1997 (again, not mine), for whom no support has ever been paid (supposedly because the father has a "criminal record", the matter was never pursued by the CP or any enforcement agency -- more on this later).
CP relocated to GA in 1998. I continued, as always and without fail, to mail the support checks directly to her, as she had requested in 1993. I have all of the cancelled checks in my files with which to prove this claim.
I relocated to PA in 1999.
In 2007, I mailed the Clerk's office in the NY county where the original order had been entered, requesting that copies of all paperwork related to the original case be mailed to me for my own recordkeeping.
In late 2007, to make a long story short, I had the unpleasant surprise of learning that the CP had received public assistance (TANF) in GA from 1998 to 2000 (in addition to my having paid her directly). A garnishment of my paycheck (along the lines of the amount in the original 1991 order) was commenced in PA but stopped after one month when the CP went
to her caseworker in GA and indicated that the non-TANF "arrearage" that they had on record was being forgiven by her. An enforcement officer from the CP's county of residence in GA sent me a letter indicating the the past-due support "arrearage" had been forgiven by the CP (using language that strongly implied that I had leaned on or harrassed the CP into doing so) and informing me that I was being tagged with a debt of $10,300 for "public assistance" that the CP had received "from April 1998 to October 2007". This in spite of the fact that I have yet to miss or be late on a child support payment (again, directly to the CP) in the twenty-plus years that I've been paying.
Because the original support order was issued in NY, whose laws specify that child support must continue to the age of 21, I kept on paying until my son reached at age and in fact continue to do so as he is currently a 22 year-old college student in GA.
As of today, the CP has never received any support from the fathers of her other two children, leading me to believe that the $10,300 amount (which I am still in the process of paying off) also somehow covers the obligations that two other men have never paid (in fairness, though, only one of them has been subject to an actual support order to date).
Despite all of this, the CP (who is a very good mother regardless) and I still have a good relationship, and I continue to send support (whose amount has actually been several times that orginally ordered for a number of years now as I have had a successful career) without fail while paying the state of GA for the public assistance arrearage via a garnishment whose amount is fortunately only 25% of what the original order called for me to pay (supposedly that is a legal guideline of some sort when it comes to welfare arrearages).
At this point, I have become very uneasy about what might happen when my son finishes college and the money is no longer coming in to the CP for the one minor child living at home for whom she has never received any support. I've already seen the havoc that can result when the legal aspects of a situation like this are ignored, so that was a definite lesson learned for me. Not to mention the concern lurking in the back of my mind that turning off the monthly checks might not be as easy I've always thought it will be
when the time comes.
So, speaking as a novice in the world of legalities (but someone who has always tried to do the right thing nonetheless), what would be the best course of action for me to follow to protect myself in a legal sense and to forestall anything like the horror story with GA (or worse) from ever happening again? In other words, how to make this entire arrangement "legitimate" in the eyes of the law? 20/20 being hindsight, I can now see several past intervals where it would have behooved me to pay attention to the legal side of things, but what's done is done and I'm just trying to focus on the here and now.
My question is -- what do I do now to protect myself? I realize that talking to an attorney is the obvious answer, but again, I'm just looking for any advice on how to present my case, what I can expect, and how common situations like these might be. Will I be laughed out of the place or is there something that a legal professional can do to help me?
Thanks for taking the time to read my story and for any feedback you can provide.
John in PA
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?
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