What to do about child support?

Question

My husband has a 2 year old daugher, with whom we have been raising for months, she was taken away from her real mother by the state. We are trying to get her served with papers for full custody and child support ammendment, but they cannot seem to get her served. So my husband has to still send his child support or he will get in trouble. She actually we are paying her for nothing. Anyone have any suggestions on what to do?

Also, my husband has never been late with a payment and is current on child support. We do have a lawyer, but we are in MO and she is in GA. The papers for custody change and child support ammendment are supposed to be in 2 counties trying to find her but we just can't get her served. He sends his money into MO and then it's distrubuted to GA and somewhere we can't seem to get a current address, we can't even get shot records for the baby, so she is having to start over on shots. He not trying to get back at his ex, he truly is a great father, so great I'm jealous, I wish my children was loved like that when they were younger. Thanks everyone for your answers.

Also, she doesn't work, so that's out! She has no place to live, she's bouncing from one place to the next. But she calls every other night from pay phones, cell phones, etc., to check on her. It's been since May of '06 and she hasn't even asked to see her.

Answer 1

Continue to pay it to her- if you don't your husband could be put in jail, his license tken away and your joint checking acount frozen(this happened to my uncle). Child support laws are heavily biased against men. They don't care about your situation at all. What you need to do is continue to pay child support (keep ALL records of this), get to court as soon as possible and get his child support obligations completelly dropped since he has custody of his daughter. Then, he needs to sue his daughters dead-beat mother for all of the child support that he has paid her while he has had custody, and get the Mother to pay him child support. Good Luck. I hope everything works out for you.

BTW: When a woman wants to go to court to petition for child support she gets free leagl aide but when a man wants to fight for his rights he has to pay for his own attorney. Since he is the custodial parent, check and see if HE qualifies for free legal aid just as a custodial mother would.

I hope you and your husband get full custody since her mother ABANDONED her.

Answer 2

Where does your husband send the support check? If she is able to receive the check, then papers should be served to whatever address the check is sent to, unless of course it is sent to a PO Box. If your husband knows where she is working, you can have the papers served there. If she spends a great deal of time at a friend or relative's house, then you can try to find out when she is there and have the papers served then. It costs a little bit of money to have the papers served by a process server. I believe you can have a friend or relative serve the papers and that would be cheaper if they are willing to stake out the places she is likely to be. Still, if your husband's child was taken away from this woman by the state, then he is no longer bound to pay child support. He should contact your state's child support enforcement officer (Google "-----State Division of Child Support" - fill in the blank with the name of your state - and you will likely find the state's website for child support which can give you the contact phone number for the child support enforcement officer in your area). By letting the child support enforcement officer know that your husband is paying child support for a child who he has custody of, the officer can take steps to get the support payments stopped and can give you guidance as to how to collect support from the child's mother. Also, if your husband has an attorney, I would contact that attorney. If not, I would contact the Family Law office of your county's courthouse. They usually have lawyers and paralegals who can give free guidance as to the steps to take in order to change court orders and child support orders. Good luck!

Answer 3

We also live in Mo so I totally understand. My husband had full custody of one of my step daughters for 5 months, the other step daughter just turned 18 and he still paid/pays for them. It is hard to get MO child support to change unless the mother of the child is willing to sign a paper saying she no longer has the child. Even the one that turned 18 we are still paying on and have had to hire an attorney to go to court...........either pay money for an attorney or keep paying support on a grown child. What a choice!
Anyway, I feel for you because I know how MO laws can be. Don't give up keep fighing it.

Answer 4

Go to the child protection agency who apprehended the child and have them change the situation. They have the power to, and know which groups to contact.

That's what it's like in Canada, I hope I'm directing you well, because I don't know how things are organized in the US. They have the proof that the child was apprehended and who has the child. I believe that would be a good start. Good luck with that.

I'm glad your new husband has the child. I hope he's just happy with that instead of "trying to get even". :-) For his own good, and the child's. From the sounds of it, if she's dodging you guys, then she's probably unemployed as well. The child protection agency should have that all on record.

Btw Mere, not all women get their court activities paid by the state. There are loads of women, who are educated, work, independent, who have to pay the courts themselves.

It's only uneducated, unemployed, dependent women who have their court fees paid for by the state.

Answer 5

It depends greatly what the laws of your state are, but see if you can get the court to allow you to set up a fund to pay the child support into. Theoretically, this shouldn't be too difficult because you have physical custody of the child, and what is really important is the child's well being.
Some states allow this and others do not. If she is being incooperative because she wants to keep the money, this should really bring her out.

Answer 6

the child support enforcement agency should be able to locate her, since that is who handles dispersing the child support that he sends.
for shot records contact the Georgia Health Dept. System or if she was on some kind of assistance-- the state will have a record of what doctors she went to.
you might have to fax a copy of documents proving you now have custody but that would be a simple process. (this would save the child from having to be re-vacinated.)

Answer 7

Talk to a lawyer. You should be able to put the money into a special type of account, so once the court issues are settled, it can be properly distributed. You can do the same sort of thing for rent disputes and such, that way you are still paying the money, but a third party holds it until the dispute is settled.

Answer 8

Your husband needs to have a review of his case performed by the state child support agency. If he is the custodial parent, they will stop the automatic payments. Otherwise, your husband will have to get an attorney to start full custody. Sometimes, you are forced to get an attorney, unfortunately.

Answer 9

give the server updated information of where she'll be at a certain time so he can get her served! Find out why the state is still collecting support from him when they took her away and where the support is going! You need a GOOD attorney!

Answer 10

Im sorry but that doent seem right because if you have her your husband doent have to pay, because the court took the child away!oh and another thing if your husband still owes back child support then yes he has to pay it off! in the future when the child support office gets it correct his ex might have to pay it all back!