What Happens When Child Support Payments Get Behind?

In other words, a casual agreement with your spouse is not appropriate because it’s not legal. Petitioning the court for modification of child support orders is the only way to change the legal child support obligations originally established by the court at the time of your divorce, or whenever child support and custody was set.

The New Jersey Family Support Payment Center provides the following explanation regarding the collection of child support monies each month, “Federal law requires child support payments to be automatically deducted from the paycheck of the payor (parent providing financial child support). Income withholding makes it easier for both the payee (parent receiving child support payments) to collect timely, regular payments and the payor to be assured of regular payments to avoid any enforcement activity. The employer deducts the child support amount and sends it to the New Jersey Family Support Payment Center (NJFSPC), which then processes the payment and sends it to the payee.”

Since it’s a Federal law that employers must withhold child support and send it to the NJFSPC, you can see that a parent with the obligation to pay child support could avoid collection if he or she is not employed, or if an employer is not notified of a child support obligation.

Parents with the obligation to pay child support can do so directly through NJFSPC, but not directly to the parent who receives child support. Payments must go through NJFSPC. And when there is no employer-deducted child support provided each month it’s possible for the payments to get behind.

The State of New Jersey has a variety of enforcement tools available, and one of them is court-ordered child support enforcement. ­­­A private, family lawyer may request a hearing on your behalf in Family Court and help you to obtain or dispute back child support payments.

To collect back child support through the court system, or to avoid arrest warrants and judgments on your property if you owe back child support, call us for a no-obligation consultation, (732) 365-3299. Or email us to make an appointment and discuss your situation.