IN THE BEGINNING… there was man and woman…. They married, then for whatever reason man decided he didn’t want to be married…
So there was a thing called Divorce, now it used to be real hard to get a Divorce, with a lot of money being paid out for the upkeep of his former family…but the Good Old Boy Lawyer/Judge Club decided it shouldn’t be so hard to get rid of the little wife and all those other responsibilities… so came the no-fault Divorce…
Any child support was based on the income man said he earned, after all his taxes and expenses were deducted of course (wink-wink between judges and lawyers…) the child support payments were mailed to the courthouse with no one really keeping track of missed payments, only the ones he chose to send.
Which led to the creation of the lawyers who had to specialize in filing to collect missed payments, the Attorney General’s Child Support Collection Office and in the last few years Private Agencies that will handle it for you for a percentage of the arrearage and future payments, calling that enforcement, you know keeping them in line...(more good ole boy winking)
Most charge a very high percentage, as much as 60%, with some of these pirate agengies not even giving you a timeline of when their cut will end. Most AG's fail horribly in collecting anything for the custodial parent. The attorneys want a retainer, payment up front (average retainer for lawyer $2500 in my area)
The attorneys make money, the agencies make money, the deadbeat dads (or moms) hide money, and the system continues to feed on itself.
So where does that leave the children?
Doing without…
If you stumbled in here thinking I would have all the answers, you will be disappointed.
The one solution to child support arrearage is to not allow it in the first place.
How hard could it be that when the non-custodial parent is court ordered to pay child support, they pay it or go to jail. When a payment was missed, with a reasonable 3-4 day grace period, a warrant would be issued for their arrest. When the payments fall 30 days behind they would be hunted down and hauled off in handcuffs, in front of anybody that was there, and GO TO JAIL.
Funny, that is how most of the people believe it works… believe me it does not.
This is my story....hopefully it will help someone else trying to collect child support.
Disclaimer: Any Child support collection ads running at the top of this page are probably not your best choice. Beware!!!
