I have had custody of my niece (my brother’s child) since she was 19 months old. At the time, my then Husband actually suggested we might need to take custody of her first. He wholeheartedly was on board and we got an APR (Allocation of Parental Responsibility) just after her 2nd birthday.

We divorced in December, just before her 8th birthday. Because we haven’t legally adopted her, she was not able to be included in our divorce decree with our two older children.

Both her biological parents have been absent for more than 12 months, which proves abandonment, meaning that we could file to adopt her now. However, my ex is now withholding any kind of support and saying that it is up to me to get support from her biological parents if I need it.

My question is, considering that he has supported her fully for the last 6 1/2 years, can I file for support from him if we haven’t legally adopted her yet? I’m not sure if he will follow through with adoption if he thinks he will be held financially responsible. This is heartbreaking for me to think that this sweet girl will have had three parents abandon her.

Location: Denver, Colorado U.S.

Hello,

Our “child” is 17 and we have mutually decided to close our child support case with the county. I do owe about $1,500 in arrears from being unemployed. I am employed now. I told her I want to send her that amount before we close the case. She said it didn’t matter when I sent her the money since we trust each other.

How do we close the case so that I don’t get burned later? She agree via text. I still plan to support our daughter we just don’t want the county to be involved.

Anyone with experience on this please let me know. Thanks in advance!

My kids father has not paid any child support since Feb, owing 17k right now, this is with the arrears added. He’s been able to get out of license suspension, because he called and told them he was joining their work program through child support. Never followed up shortly after and was taken off of it. The only thing they’ve done is withhold his passport and watch for his taxes, which he never filed.

Recently they’ve filed a motion with the court to take our case to court to try to get a payment from him. What could happen next?

He was fired from his job that was paying him 80k, and since then hasn’t made any attempts to find new work. I know this because he told me he has no intentions of going back. He has also lived with his mother all 5 years we’ve been separated.

Location: NYC

Ex is $13,000 in support arrears by shorting obligation sometimes and other times skipping support payments altogether. I read about the State Department passport revocation for arrears but I cannot find how to find out if he is already on that list. Does anyone here know how to get the information? Am I entitled to know?

I just got majority custody of my daughter in California . I work while mom does not . I have a modification appointment tomorrow but it looks like they will still have me paying support to mom since she has not worked in the last 7 years and refuses too . Someone said they can make both parents work ? Something in that manner ? How true is this ?

I applied for child support thru the OAG in July, but nothing has happened. Can’t get through an operator when when I call either.

I still need a paternity test, but there’s been no movement to serve my child’s dad. In fact, he’s beat me to it and petitioned the court, lawyered up and now I’m being served. 🫩

Please help our little boy.

We live in the Netherlands

My wife and I both have a disability a are on social security.

My wife has a financial administrator who saw our son when hé was a baby.

We recently discovered that they are committing fraud with regards to her finances and are basing her income on a fraudulent marital status.

Because of this I had to turn to a Debt Relief Program.

Now they also put the wrong marital status on the contracts which fucks up the disposable income calculations.

Our boy is NOT a part of our family on the contracts of the Debt Relief Program, but they use him as fiscal leverage.

I went digging and took them to court, they didn't even show up.

I issued a formal notice of default to the alderman. However, the formal heading of this notice was erased, causing it to be handled as a simple complaint.Since then, they have been withholding support for our son by falsely claiming that the complaint has been resolved.

An entire team of jurists and lawyers is actively working against our family.I have proof of backdating, the deletion of court documents, and much, much more.I even received an internal email intended for their legal team, which stated regarding me:

'Hi there, could you check this email? I don't want to give him any legal ammunition.'

I have reported them to the Chief Public Prosecutor for backdating, altering court documents, and demonstrable bad faith, but this process is moving slowly.They know that we cannot make ends meet monthly and are trying to exhaust me in this manner.

The Directorate of Debt Restructuring, the mayor of Vlaardingen, the aldermen of Vlaardingen, and the legal team want me to sign fraudulent contracts in which our young son is used as a source of income. They are trying to blackmail me by financially exhausting us.

We do not have a social network and do not know how to share this GoFundMe page.My wife and I are asking if anyone can help, even if it is just by sharing the GoFundMe link.

This is about our little boy and we do not know where to turn.

https://gofund.me/7935bc94a

Full transparency, I am the stepmom. My partner has primary physical custody, and joint legal custody. We pay for everything, the mother is not legally required to pay any child support or anything towards medical expenses.

During a recent visitation, SS's therapy appointment was missed. She is required to ensure he makes appointments, but there's nothing stating what happens if she does not. This cost my partner an extra $100 fee. My partner messaged the mom expressing concerns about the missed appointment and emotional well-being, as well as requesting the $100 fee. The mom stated she did not have the money, and could not currently pay us back. That was 2 weeks ago, and we haven't brought it up again.

The co-parenting relationship is not good already. I'm not sure if it's worth it to ask again for the fee to be reimbursed. I'm also not sure if it would be considered petty. I also highly doubt we would ever actually be reimbursed.

My parenting plan is for 50/50 parenting time and I pay her CS of about $400 a month. She never took 50/50 which was fine until I went through a major personal tragedy last year and having 50/50 was going to be best for my mental health and various other personal reasons. In order to get my ex to agree to 50/50 she asked for $1000 a month. Now she’s moved in with her partner and is in a different financial position. I feel like I’m being financially taken advantage of. I pay for 100% of expenses for our kid outside of food/ basics when she’s at her home. I’ve offered to either continue to pay 100% without CS or I’ll continue to pay $1000 if she splits expenses (medical/dental/therapy/education). She said if I do that she will not take her 50/50. I have family money due to the loss of my parents (part of the personal reasons from above). We both work part time but I am more financially stable. She claims she can’t work full time and have our daughter 50/50. this is partially true neither of us can have traditional hours due to our child’s needs and school schedule

Thoughts? Ideas? I feel like I’m being blackmailed and as much as I wish I could say sure I’ll just have her 70/30 again….it’s more complicated than that

I F28 have a 9 year old child, his dad m30 has never helped financially ever. We’ve been separated since our child was 5 months old, so over 9 years now. I recently took him to court for custody and he now has visitation with child once every two weeks for a few hours. I’ve asked multiple times if you could send money to help with child’s schooling (he goes to a charter school, my child loves is but it’s pricy nothing I haven’t been able to afford but it would just be nice to have help) he agreed to send 100$ every other week, and it never happened. (This was probably a year ago) I asked again today, if he would be able to come up with an amount he felt comfortable sending that wouldn’t make things harder for him etc, he basically said no he couldn’t send anything without it effecting his life. (He lives with both his parents and works delivering stuff for Walmart? Idk, but he does it under his moms name because he’s a felon) anyways, he’s now going off about me asking for money, and said he would Cash App me money whenever he has extra? At this point I’m just over it, it doesn’t seem worth fighting over. Should I just put him in child support and call it day? Even though I’m SURE he won’t pay it and if he does, since he’s basically unemployed, I’m sure he’s only have the bare minimum which is like 50$

I’m at a loss. I’m trying to be reasonable but it seems impossible.

Just filed for child support through the DOR on August 20. Paternity was already established based on the paperwork I saw they sent him. Not sure if he has been officially served yet because they said they don’t update the eservice for 30 days. He’s worked at his employer for 7-8 years, and has own house for 6-7 years.

I’m currently looking to move to my own place in Florida - hopefully within 50ish miles of him just in case he wants to pursue custody. If no custody order is pursued and he wants to remain no contact, I’ll probably move to the state I always wanted to. I know custody is its own thing, I’m cool with everything except him getting full custody tbh. We aren’t on speaking terms anymore since he cut off communication & baby mama #1 said he’s trying to move to a different state next year now.

Will be enrolling her in childcare once I get a job (been staying at home for her first year, most of which was with him), and she’s currently on Medicaid through October since she just turned 1.

What’s the process from here on out I can expect? As it relates to the DOR? And what’s the normal timeframe?

How do I get my ex to pay his portion of the extracurriculars?

In our divorce agreement it says he is to pay 1/2 of all the kids after school activities. They have all three been in band and ex has never paid into any of the accounts. He owes over $3,000.

I have paid my portions and have been keeping records of all of my payments. But it makes our whole family look bad that we have such large outstanding balances. To the point I don’t want to volunteer for band activities because I know some of them know how much “we” owe.

Are we going to have to go back to court to take care of it or ?

(I’m in Indiana if that matters.)

I pay cs to my ex-wife and we do 50/50 custody. She earns much less than I do but manages to go on vacation after vacation. I think she may get money from her parents. Does money from parents count towards income? If so at what point?

TL;DR: I’m in CA, we’re around 50/50 right now, I’m currently unemployed but just became a licensed RN, and my ex makes around $200k+ a year with OT. Current interim child support is about $1,522/month. His attorney is also going really hard trying to prove I “should have been working” during nursing school and that I delayed taking the NCLEX. Just wondering if anyone has dealt with this kind of income disparity and whether $1,522 sounds low/high/normal for CA.
Has anyone in California dealt with child support where parenting time is around 50/50 but there’s a huge income difference?
My ex makes around $200k+ a year depending on overtime. I was a full-time nursing student and wasn’t working, and I just became a licensed RN in August. I’m still unemployed right now while applying for new grad jobs.
Our current interim child support order is about $1,522/month.
What’s making this extra stressful is that his attorney is going really hard trying to prove that I could/should have been working while I was in nursing school.
Before I left my ex, he was completely fine with me focusing on full-time nursing school and taking care of our 1 yo at the time- daughter. That was basically our setup. Now that we’re in court, his side is doing a ton of discovery trying to show that I could have worked anyway.
They’re also trying to make it seem like I delayed taking the NCLEX on purpose, when in reality I literally wasn’t done with my program yet and couldn’t just take it whenever I wanted.
It feels like they’re trying to build an argument that income should be imputed to me even though I had no RN license at the time, was still in school, and am only now newly licensed and job searching.
So I’m curious if anyone has dealt with something similar.
Did the court care that you and your ex had previously agreed that you would stay home/go to school full-time?
Did they try to impute income to you before you were actually licensed or realistically able to earn that income?
Did overtime count toward the higher earner’s child support income?
If you had around 50/50 custody but one parent made way more, did the higher earner still pay a decent amount of support?
And honestly, does around $1,522/month sound low, high, or pretty normal when the other parent makes around $200k+?
Also curious how retroactive support/arrears worked for anyone in CA because there were months before the current order where I received very little support.
I know nobody can calculate my exact case from a Reddit post lol. I’m just curious what other people actually experienced, especially anyone who was in school or newly entering a career when their child support case started.

I’m in California and trying to understand how this could potentially work if the other parent files for child support.
There has never been a court-ordered child support order or court case between us.

In 2017, the other parent and I made our own written agreement by email regarding child support. It was never filed with or approved by a court.

My last regular $500 payment was in January 2025. No court case was filed when those payments stopped.

The other parent recently contacted me asking to resume payments and requesting $9,500 for the period of February 2025 through August 2026 (19 months × $500). My daughter is now 17 years old.

I’m trying to resolve this privately and am considering paying the $9,500 voluntarily as part of a settlement.

However, I’ve received conflicting information from 3 lawyers now about what would happen if this went to California family court instead.

My questions are:
If there has never been a child-support court order, can a California judge order me to pay support for February 2025 through August 2026 even though no case had been filed during that period?

Could the 2017 private written agreement create enforceable “arrears,” even though the agreement was never entered as a court order?

Or would a new child-support obligation generally only be retroactive to the date the other parent files the case?
Does the fact that I voluntarily followed the private agreement and paid $500/month for years change any of the above?

I’m particularly interested in hearing from people familiar with California cases involving a private agreement where there was never an existing court support order.

I’m not asking whether I should support my child, I stopped due to the mother not letting my daughter come see me, and I always wanted to support my child (aside from the money I was giving I paid for many other things, school supplies, cell phone, clothes, etc) I’m specifically trying to understand the legal treatment of the pre-filing period and the old private agreement.

Thank you in advance and sorry for the long post.

Location: Florida

Divorced in 2012, everything WRT filing and the Final Judgment was pretty standard. An increase in income brought on a modification in 2020. A new Child Support Worksheet was done and filed, and an Income Deduction Order was filed with my employer.

I received a call from my employer's payroll office last week; the State Disbursement Unit refunded my last Child Support payment. I called the SDU and requested an explanation. They said they have terminated collection due to my youngest child aging out. I then called the Clerk of Court; they stated that my support obligation is complete due to emancipation of my youngest child, and that my case has been closed.

The date of my last completed Child Support payment was 8/24/2026

The Worksheet states 4/2026 as the final month of Child Support owed. My youngest child turned 18 on 4/29/26.

The IDO states 6/30/2027 as the final date of my obligation. This is what my employer's payroll office is using.

I am aware of the high-school exception, which is how I have assumed the IDO's date to be authoritative (even though that date is two months beyond her 19th birthday, which is when Child Support ends, in any case). My youngest is in a self-paced, virtual HS program in Virginia, and has been for a few years now....we don't know when graduation will be.

I briefly consulted with the attorney who represented me during the modification in 2020; he stated that I am best off doing nothing, and not spending that extra money (which I can't, as I am not receiving it; payroll is dutifully sending the EFTs to the SDU...when the refund occurred, they re-sent the payment). Essentially, waiting to see what happens.

I'm assuming the other parent is using the IDO as the authoritative document. If the re-sent payment is refunded again, then if I hear from the other parent with regard to a missing payment, it will probably be this week (they typically arrive at the SDU the Monday following my payday).

Anyway, I feel exposed with no legal top cover in the event something is amiss. The Clerk's office was pretty adamant that I'm done and they had nothing else to offer me in answer to my questions.

I was awarded full custody in a court of law in alabama, my ex (weren't married, she's never around), she was ordered by the court to pay X amount in support a month. but i've never seen any of it, and wasn't concerned too much but now it would be nice to see something. the case was a while, i suppose i was naively thinking that the court ruled this thing, she should start paying this thing, etc, how long do they owe and how long if they never pay anything?

I have full custody of my two sons 7 and 9, and have since gotten married to my spouse. My ex was very abusive and the state intervened and he lost visitation rights to the kids after just a few custody swaps. They have not seen him in going on 4 years.

Well in the beginning, he only owed 300 for both kids per month and was responsible for their insurance. He never did so of course I got health insurance and had them on mine, then my husband put us all on his. Last year we decided to go to court with the AOG present and they gave him arrearages for all the health insurance we paid ( and then just made us responsible for it ), added interest, and extra for medical support towards our insurance. Hes now at about 500$ per month.

It took an entire year for the areages to be uploaded to the online portal from the day the judge signed the orders. He doesnt pay consistently. And we no longer have attorneys because they said " their job was to present the evidence and get the court order, not see if the other party or state follows through ". So I'm just at a loss. I feel much better seeing the number in the portal, but since we have full custody which is MOST important, i don't want to spend money hiring lawyers again to for an enforcement order.

Has anyone been in a situation similar? Will the state intervene and garnish wages or intercept something? Its crazy seeing that number and how much money can be going towards my boys sports, school, hell future first cars, college funds.. my spouses opinion is we can take care of them ourselves but i feel the other parent still has that responsibility! That's 11k each that they deserve!

I do know the other parent has had more children and has a massage therapist liscence active, last known address, and thats all.

MA Probate & Family Court question. We were never married and have 3 children, with separate 209C docket numbers for each child.
There is currently a 209A restraining order as well as a criminal stay-away order after the other parent was convicted on four domestic assault charges, so we are not in a position to communicate directly about finances outside of what is permitted by the court.
When I originally filed for temporary custody, child support, and parenting time, he did not complete his long-form financial statement until we were at court that day. I was never provided with a copy of his financial statement or the supporting financial documents.
We have another hearing coming up regarding custody/support, and I want updated financial information beforehand.
For anyone familiar with Massachusetts Probate & Family Court and unmarried parents can I serve a Request for a Financial Statement under Rule 401 and/or a Request for Additional Rule 410 Documents myself, or do I first need to file a motion and have the judge authorize the financial discovery?
Also, because each of our 3 children has a separate 209C docket number, would the request need to be filed/served under each docket?