Call a Child Support Attorney if You Need to Enforce an Order of Support
As a local child support attorney, we can help you to receive the financial support you need from an ex-spouse or the parent of your child. What some people don’t realize is that you do not have to be married to receive child support. The biological parent of your child is legally obligated to help provide for the child until they are eighteen, whether you were married or not. Most commonly a judge will award child support to one or the other parent during a divorce case. However, if no child support is currently being paid, we can bring a case before the court so that an order can be established, and you can receive the monthly help that you need.
Do You Have an Existing Order of Support?
If you have an existing order for child support (you have gone to court and the judge awarded it to you) this order becomes enforceable. It is wise to have this established by the court instead of creating a verbal agreement. A verbal agreement is not easy to enforce, and if something changes and they stop paying, you will need to go back to court anyway. Going through the legal process initially can keep things easier with time. After all, eighteen years of monthly payments really add up, and some people simply get tired of paying it.
Call a Child Support Attorney if Your Ex Refuses to Pay
If you do have an existing order of support and it isn’t being paid, we can help to enforce it by taking the matter before the court. There are ways to ensure that you receive the compensation you are owed. Some judges may decide to garnish their wages so that the child support is taken directly out of their paycheck. That way you no longer need to depend on them to make the payment, but it will go through an agency and be paid directly to you. In some cases, this is the only way to guarantee that you will receive a payment each month. If the situation has progressed too far, some judges will even have the other person placed in jail until they can make some type of payment arrangement. We have found that when you get an attorney involved, a lot of people will negotiate payment terms outside of court, so it is possible to avoid this level of escalation. While your ex may blow you off and ignore your requests for payment, most people are more hesitant to do the same when a lawyer is involved, knowing what the court implications can mean.
A Child Support Attorney Can Help You to Get More Financial Support
As a child support attorney, we can also assist you if you have been receiving child support and feel that it needs to be increased. Some common examples of this involve schooling. If, for example, your child requires special care, or you need to send them to private school, we can approach the court to try and get support for these specific expenses.