Irresponsible Dad

My daughter's ex has their son every other week-end but pays only 1/8 of the court ordered child support. She has a good ob making decent pay but the school and child care cost about $600/month. He is self employed as a handyman and working very regularly but reports very little of it. This has got to be a very common situation. Anybody have any idea how to get the state to go after the money? They live about 140 miles apart, so she can't keep track of him, but she has positive information about him working although not where.

I would think unless you did your own PI work and document where he's working and when it could get more expensive than it's worth. If it was documented where he was working and when you could just tell him to pay up or you would turn him over to the IRS.

He has it figured out he thinks. She should have her child support administered by the county. When he doesn't pay, they take away hid drivers license and contractors license. They will also put him in jail for non support. That debt does not go away he will have to pay it eventually.

Every jurisdiction has it"s own laws about dead beat dads. Your daughter needs to petition the courts for back support or throw the bum in jail for non payment and request suspension of visitation until back payments are adjusted or satisfied.

In WI the court ordered support is a set dollar amount that the court decides. It is the father's responsibility to pay that amount. He is responsible for it until it is paid in full. My step daughter was 21 before her father had her support paid off. The set amount is better than the percentage system because he can't quit his job and work for cash cheap to avoid paying. The amount he owes stays the same. A good child support agency will keep track of what he owes and enforce it until it is paid. That being said it doesn't mean she will get the money when she needs it but if she keeps in contact with the county agency they will keep pushing him to pay until he is caught up.

She needs to go see her attorney again. Drag his butt back in front of the judge. She needs to document his payments and amounts, if he is paying for odd and ends she needs she needs to document that also.Do not use the child and visitation as a bargaining chip. Divorces are rarely neat and tidy-usually ugly-especially when kids are involved.

The wife and I are going through this with my step daughters biological father. He does the same 'handyman' type of work and works strictly for cash. He also 'works for friends' but never recieves a 1099, W-2, or any other documentation on what he makes. We've been fighting this situation for going on 5 years now and I can tell you for sure there is no really good way to do anything when you can not absolutely prove what he is doing. In our case the guy has pretty much hung himself several time with his own, handwritten paperwork showing what he says he makes, and has been slapped on the wrist once and sent to jail once too. Thing is it doesn't seem to matter what we do he simply doesn't seem to care.

The sad thing is paying support and custody/visitation are seperate in the eyes of the state. In other words he still gets his visitation wether he pays or not. To me this is BS. If the parent with primary custody doesn't pay to support the kid DSS would take them in a heartbeat, but when a noncustodial father doesn't pay his support, it doesn't matter, "he still has rights" to see the kid regardless. If you ask me, no pay, no play, but unfortunately our illiustrios justice system doesn't feel the same way.

All that said, the thing that really kills you in a situation like this is that you can take him to court for civil contempt, which is easy as all you have to prove is that he hasn't paid. Thing is all this gets him is a slap on thw wrist. If you go for criminal contempt, which would get him locked up for not following the judges order and paying, you have to PROVE he has or had the ability to pay and chose not to. If you can't PROVE he had that ability, then getting a judge to find him in criminal contempt isn't going to happen. Unfortunately with someone like this guy proving anything is near impossible when he works for cash, unless you get lucky and he provides paperwork that shows you what you need to know and proves the case against himself for you.

Ultimately I feel for your situation as we have been fighting the same thing for nearly 5 years. Unfortunately, bad as I hate to say it, and I know you hate to hear it, short of the things I mentioned there really isn't alot you can do.

Now as some have suggested you can turn him over to the state. If your lucky enough to live in a smaller area, not somewhere like Charlotte, NC that has millions of people, you might get good results out of them. Even then they are going to be converned first with the cases where the state has money invested in the kid before they are ones where they don't. Ultimately they can, (at least in NC) take someone's drivers license, hunting license, put a lein on their vehicles, etc, etc, and basically do all they can to make the guys life a living he!!. Unfortunately to do this means that the guy has to care about things to begin with as he can easily drive with no license, etc, etc just as long as he doesn't get caught.

Like I said, I know things probably differ a bit from state to state, but if your states laws are anything like those in NC, all I can say is Good luck, your daughter is going to need it.

If he is actually only paying an 1/8 of the court ordered support then she could have him put in jail. You did not say where she is living. Most states the child support is paid through the county court system. If the person paying gets behind in those systems they automatically go for payment. Meaning they attach tax returns and put actions against drivers license and those type of things. Eventually court orders to pay and then contempt of court rulings and jail.

Now the bigger problem with trying to collect from him is that he can claim a low income and get a lower amount set that he has to pay. It sounds like a lot of his business would be paid in cash. Proving what he actually makes would be very hard to do. Also once he gets wind of you trying to do it he can real easy make his income go to almost nothing by just not doing much work. He can plead a bad economy and get that done.

Now some things to think about:

1) How does he get along with his son??? If he treats him well and is involved then trying to collect more child support will ruin that. If he is not involved very much then there is not much to lose other than there will be a war between the boy's parents. It is tough for children when that happens. I know this first hand, my Mother and Dad divorced when I was thirty years old. It effected me even being that old. My younger brothers and sisters really got messed up by it. This a real concern you have to think long and hard about. I know you hate the guy and want blood. Maybe even your daughter does too but your grandson will be the one hurt the most!!!! The relationship between his parents is already done. They are divorced. So a battle between them really will just turn in to a game of causing harm to the other one. That will ALWAYS hurt the children more.

2) Unless he is some kind of super duper handy man he is not making that much money. That type of jobs rarely makes the person doing them that much money unless they are in a major urban area and have all the licenses required. If he is in a rural area and just doing it under the radar then he would be lucky to make 15-20K each year. There would not be much there for your daughter to get when they would figure child support.

3) Is this a big issue with your daughter or is it a big issue for YOU??? The reason I am asking this is she has to be the one to do anything. She also is the one that is going to catch a lot of the fall out from the battle this will turn into. You will not be directly involved so you really have ZERO idea how messy this could get. I do mean messy. I watched my parents fight for the better part of twenty years over child support. The screwed up holidays when neither would budge on the "official" visitation. I mean they would time it down to the minute rather than act like adults when dealing with their children. It was a battle until the youngest turned 18.

My Dad was a cheat but he made good money and he paid $1800 a month 30 years ago but that was not enought to suit my Mother. She fought him all of the time for more and more. She never could understand why her standard of living went down after they divorced. She thought she should still be able to be a stay at home Mom and live on alimony and child support. That is never going to happen with people with normal incomes. Just the cost of two households eats up most of the extra money they jointly have/had.

Do not think I am supporting the guy at all. I HATE dead beat dads too. The difference is that I have seen the battle that this turns into. There is no amount of money worth doing that to the children involved in divorce. IT ALWAYS makes their lives worse not better. Is the few hundred a month she would gain worth the battle??? It would not be to me. I would just help her out monetarily if it is possible. A happy home life for your grand son is more important than a score card that says the courts think the money issue is all "fair".

If money is tight for you then if you live close enough watch your grandson more so she does not have to pay child care so much. That is part of the problems today. Everyone moves all around to "better" themselves. So they rarely have family close enough for any kind of support staff so to speak.

I love having kids around. My wife does too even with her health problems. Any of my families kids are welcome to stay with us when every needed. I do mean when every. We watch the two youngest grand sons (4-5) now when they are not in school. That time is great for us and saves their parents a lot of money they are saving. They bought their first home/land just a while ago. They would not have been able do that with high child care cost. The old watching the young is how it used to be. I think that is one issue with the trouble kids have today too much DAY CARE. It is parenting farmed out for hire. Every see a hired hand do the job as good as the owner???

Just my thoughts and they are worth what you paid. LMAO Have a good day. I know it makes your blood boil but there really is little you can do to correct other people's actions.

Might be better if they got back together!!

Its probably too late for them. I have always tried to learn from other peoples mistakes. The one big thing I learn is the key to financial success is to stay married.
I have a 21 year old grandson who's real father left the state before he was born. About sixteen years later the state somehow caught up with him when he thought it was ok to come back. They cleaned his accounts and guaranteed his wages. My daughter and grandson received a large sum of back-support

My wife is going through the same situation, and has been for
years. The boys father will do anything he can to get around
paying. It was a losing situation until the judge ordered him to
pay her lawyer costs. His Dad stepped in to pay some of the
child support to keep him from going to jail. He is behind again
though. I wish your daughter the best but it's a difficult
situation to be in.

Deadbeat parents are a problem. I've seen both men and women try to duck out of child support. One former sister in law dropped out on my 2 nephews and was ordered to pay child support. Then she cooked her brain on booze and drugs. A judge declaired her mentally incompedent and she got SS disability. SS paid her child support until the boys turned 18. Get this, when she first wanted out of the mkarriage she wrote a letter to the deviorve jusge say she would give up all rights to the boys if she could have the microwave oven.

Getting to the problem at hand.

Turn in all the info you have to your daughters lawyer. He will know how to go from there in your state. Be careful though. In MN if the court or social services collects the child support then pays the parent with custody the state keeps a pretty good chunk for "admin" fees.

Rick

Now you can't "get away" by leaving the state. If you employer is following the law Child Services will know where you are within a week of a person starting a job. It usually takes about two weeks for them to issue a withholding order to your employer. That is if you have court ordered child support.

---------------------------------------


In 1996, Public Law 104-193, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, abolished AFDC and related programs and replaced them with a block grant program of TANF. Under the new law, each State must operate a CSE Program meeting Federal requirements in order to be eligible for TANF funds. In addition to abolishing AFDC, Public Law 104-193 made about 50 changes to the CSE Program, many of them major. These changes include requiring States to increase the percentage of fathers identified, establishing an integrated, automated network linking all States to information about the location and assets of parents, requiring States to implement more enforcement techniques, and revising the rules governing the distribution of past due (arrearage) child support payments to former recipients of public assistance.

http://www.policyalmanac.org/social_welfare/archive/child_support_01.shtml

As the father of a dead beat daughter I can understand everything you say. She is a drunk and can"t keep a job and has mental issues. My daughter lost custody of her son to his father (he hired a lawyer and she didn't) and was ordered to pay child support. $300 I believe. Here in Oregon they have a standard minimum you must pay even if you don't work. That was two years ago and finally the judge said if you can't start paying just report to jail. So now she struggles to come up with $50 every month just so she won't go to jail. And yes, that bill will stay with her all her life until paid. The state takes over collecting it. Luckily we have good a relationship with the father and get to see the grandson frequently.
Just forget about collecting anything now, the kid will probably eventually get it.

After hearing this situation over and over again in life the best thing women could do for themselves is quit having babies with guys that don"t have real jobs. Handy man is just an excuse to not go to work EVERY day. I know a LOT of them and none of them could come up with $50 bucks let alone have enough money to ever raise a child. It"s just irresponsible breeding and it"s ruining the world. Ladies, find a new hobby besides breeding with idiots.

Here in ND, if your behind on child support, they will not renew your drivers license or car regridtration.

Where will the nnalert get their next generation of voters?

Call the IRS tell them you suspect that he is not reporting all of his income. They will find it. Have your lawyer subpena his income tax filings.

Read every word JD seller has written. The ma is making a ton of sense. Maybe it is true that the guy is doing all he can.
I went round and round with an ex for 21 years over support. She seemed to think I was a bottomless money tree. I paid a minimum 17% of my gross plus insurance. She would haul me into court an average of every three months, while she sat on her azz collecting welfare. Judge didn"t give a dang if my new family starved. When that bustard finally died it was the best day of my life. She kept it up,bout the third time in front of the new judge,crying because I had a newer car and had just bought a house,and she figured she deserved a piece. She admitted to the judge that she had been on welfare since the divorce,a period of about 15 years. She also admitted that I had been paying every month plus bought extras such as school supplies,gifts, clothing,and oodds and ends for the same amount of time. Judge just looked at her and said, " Obviously Mr. Pitch believes in working for what he wants out of life! If you sue this man again without adequate grounds I will find you in contempt." First and only time in my life I wanted to kiss another man.

I know of a loser that specifically doesnt work, (does side jobs) so that it is not tracked. So he can screw his Ex out of money. He does anything to not pay.

Don't know how it is anywhere else but in our little corner of NC the only deadbeat dads they go after are the ones that work all the time & make all their support payments but one. The ones that never work or pay they leave alone.

Just because a guy is a "handyman" doesn't mean he is a worthless piece of crap that never doesn't works, there are many out there that do. I say this not because I am a 'handyman' but I am self employeed and I work my a$$ off, just like any other self employeed individual should, to provide for my family. The guy my wife (and I) now deal with had his own company, and several employees when they were together. When times got bad he simply started working strickly for cash, more so than before, and claims not to make anything. Funny how someone like this can provide documentation of nearly $3000 worth of monthly expenses (and have all of the items claimed as proof of those expenses) yet claim he only makes around $700 per month. Ultimately it takes a lawyer who knows what he is doing to be able to know how to present the whole situation to a judge in such a manner that criminal contempt can be proven and the individual can be sent to jail for his/or her neglect of their child.

nfortunately the way you are presenting things seems to be the way the court system looks at it when it comes to the whole visitation-vs-support deal. Think about it this way, what is more important, taking care of a childs needs, or of their wants? In many cases the deadbeat parent behind still gets to see their kids with absolutely no consequenses to their actions where the parent with primary custody would lose the kid in a heartbeat if they showed the same neglect as the one not paying their share of the support. Unfortunately that is the way the court system looks at things. That being the case unless the parent with primary custody doesn't do anything to hold the deadbeat acountable for their actions then NOTHING ever gets done. Granted there are probably a few differences state to state in their rules on all of this, but in general that is the way it goes.

That being said, if the parent with primary custody withholds visits they can get in serious trouble. At the same time if you can't PROVE that the deadbeat isn't paying, is purposely not making money, etc, etc then all they will ever get is a slap on the wrist. You have to PROVE they can pay and chose not to before it becomes criminal contempt and opens them up to jail time. On the other hand if the responsible parent doesn't do without getting their hair done, getting a manicure, hitting the tanning booth, doing without cable, etc, etc, to make sure their child has enough to eat, the mortgage and utilities are paid, etc, etc then they stand the chance of living under a bridge and losing their child. In the same circumstances the deadbeat has cable, gets their spouses nails and hair done, etc, etc, etc but claims to have no money to pay support. Tell me where this is right................

Ultimately what your saying simply doesn't hold water. If the deadbeat treats his/her child any differently because the custodial parent holds them accoutable for their part of the monetary side of caring for a child then that person is irresponsibily stupid to the point they should have no right seeing the child anyway, at least in my opinion.

Bad as I hate to say it your parents doing what they did was horrible, but there are parents like your Mom who aren't satified regardless of what the other parent does. Fortunately all parents aren't like your Mom. Some work their a$$es off to support their child while the other parent sets back and does nothing but demand their 'rights' and to he!! with their responsibilities. This is just as bad for the child as anything because in the end the parent that really cares, that tries to set a good example for their kid spends way, way too much time working to insure the childs needs are taken care of, losing valuable 'together time' while the deadbeat always has money to take the child to the park, out for ice cream, etc, etc and give him/her everything they want but to he!! with the things the child needs.

No offense meant here, as I understand what your saying based soley on your experience, but not all cases are like yours and based on what I read in the original post showcrops daugher is stuck in one of those cases, just as my wife is.

Time to be unreachable on his weekends till he pays. Whats he gonna do, complain to the courts??? He is using her and she is letting him. When he holds up his end of the deal she will hold up hers.

NCWayne- I agree with everything JDSeller said.

After reading your posts, especially the last sentence in your response to JDSeller, I now understand your frustration. You too, have someone that you care about in the same situation.

Now for the hard question...Didn't you marry this woman knowing that she had kids from a previous relationship?

Yes the deadbeat dad does suck but, you brought this woman and her kids into your life.

That's a wonderful idea. Just what we need: more unlicensed, uninsured drivers driving around in unlicensed, uninsured cars.

NCWayne you are proving my point in that YOU WANT BLOOD from your wife's ex-husband. It would be fine with you to throw the kid's father in jail and throw away the key. In your mind you would have "won" the war. He would be punished for his not paying his child support. Guess who really lost??? The kids. They get to see their father thrown in jail or not get to see him.

Also you would be fine with a pay to play type of visitation-vs-support deal. Not current on support and no visitation. Sounds great to you????? You see the kids are the ones getting punished too. This is their father that they are not getting to see. They can care less about seeing you the step Dad. You can be the best Step Dad in the world and their Dad is still just that THEIR DAD!!!

I look at life differently. If I marry a woman and she has kids then I expect to support them just like they where mine. There would be no issue with the level of care/standard of living they received. They would get the same as any born to me. If they received child support it would go into a college fund. I have always been able to support several kids in this house hold. Did it for most of my adult life with my own kids and a whole bunch of foster kids. Yes we did get paid by the state for being foster parents. Guess what?? That money was put into a trust account in each kid's name. When they had a need after they where away from us that money was for that. Most of the kids we had where teenagers. We usually had them while they finished high school. Many went to college and many just got jobs but all but one is a good productive citizen. That one is a jail bird. Just a bad person.

I think this is the worst thing about divorce. It turns the family relationship into a financial deal. It becomes who is paying what rather than just doing it and making sure the kids have what they need. There should never have been his/her kids. Just my kids.

As usual, JD Seller has pretty solid advice.

Ultimately, it's up to your daughter to get the court to enforce the child support order. This is a case where the sticky wheel gets the grease. Understand the priorities of the agency responsible for child support enforcement: Top priority goes to cases where the state is having to pay out assistance. Cases where there's a lot of money involved and the payer has deep pockets also get a lot of attention, for the simple reason that the court gets a cut of the support payment, so they can bring in a lot more revenue going after a single big judgment that a lot of small ones. And of course if the payer has a regular job, those cases are real easy to collect. That leaves fathers who are self-employed and/or getting paid under the table as the court's last priority. The amounts are often small, the state probably isn't paying for assistance, and it's nearly impossible to garnish the payer's income.

What your daughter has to do is to make herself such a nuisance that the agency will do its job to enforce the child support judgement. She should write them a letter at least once a month: "What's the status of my case?" "I want a court date for a show-cause hearing." "Has a bench warrant been issued for his arrest?" The actual content of the letters isn't so important. The thing is that when she eventually gets a court date, there will be a stack of letters in her file, evidence that she's been trying to get the agency to do its job and that they haven't delivered. The judge isn't likely to be happy about that; sooner or later he'll throw the father in jail. Dad is likely to find some assets he didn't know about once he's in the hoosegow.

Thanks for all the responses. I made an error in the original post. They never married. He abandoned her when she found out that she was pregnant. She was initially going to marry him but took good advise from various people and did not pursue marriage. He came back about a year after our grandson's birth, looking to be a father of some sort. My daughter knows that she made a mistake, but we are very glad to have our grandson. She works very hard at, as I have said, a good job. In fact she kept working through chemo when she had cancer. The court has threatened him with loss of drivers license but as I said initially he pays a little here and there in order to keep them off. I think that I will find out where he lives and follow him in order to help the court know where he is working. Don't worry, I am smart enough not to confront him.

NCWayne: I replied below but let me try it here. Are the kids not being taken care of???? Are you being financially burdened to where you can't take care of them without child support???

Let me say this again. I HATE DEAD BEAT DADS!!!!

The point I am trying to make is that if you turn the entire family relationship into a monetary one then the kids already have lost something important.

IS your problem with your wife's ex-husband the fact he does not pay what you think he should in support??? If that is the case then your only recourse is to prove that he is making more than he is reporting. That is if you want the full support.

Myself I would not want to waste all my time being bitter about his actions. Make HER kids YOUR kids and forget the issue. QUIT keeping score then you will never feel like you are losing the game. Actually make it a Non game just go on with life.

Does this mean I think you should have him over for a beer??? No. Just quit worrying about what he is paying. Raise the kids like they where your own and forget the score card.

I have supported a lot of kids when their parents did not. I did not worry about what the parents could do or not do. The kids got the same level of care/love as my own kids did. I never had trouble providing for a kid. The basics are not that expensive. You can do a good job without the fancy stuff. Your time will mean more in 20-30 years than the fancy stuff. Kids are not stupid they know who does what. They usually remember that when they are older.

First of all she did not set that monthly amount , the court did and it was based on his ability to pay or his income at that time. That stands unless he goes back to court and has it lessened because of job circumstances , which obviously he hasn't. This has nothing to do with her. It has been set and he is violating court order. She isn't asking for more , she's only asking for the law to uphold their own determination and agreement. If he can't pay it then he needs to come in or be arrested to come in and plead his case not just be a deadbeat coward and pay 1/8 and call it good. Non-support is an automatic bench warrant. They will not actively seek him but if stopped he will go to jail. That means if she denies visitation to him he will not file complaint because he will have to appear and will promptly be arrested on the warrant. Call the deadbeats bluff. That original support judgement was based on something and he obviously has figured a way to beat it by quitting the job he had then. That's a dead beat! If he was half a man he would want to go down with her to court and re-set the amount and do what's right. He knows he's doing wrong and just milking time as long as she lets him. Don't know the relationship/age of the children to him but give them some credit, they are smarter than you think sometimes and they more than likely would very much agree that if he is intentionally not paying THEIR money that the court said THEY needed to live on ,they probably would not have a problem telling dad on the phone why they will not be seing him for a while. Hold him accountable,kids are tougher than one thinks.

I understand what your saying now, and in that case your right, but still only to a degree. In our case I have accepted the little girl as my own since day one, and as far as she is concerned I am her Daddy. As far as that part goes, I couldn't care less if the man ever pays a dime.

The problem is both my wife and I have with the situation is we both work our a$$es off to have what we do, and to provide for our daughter. Unfortunately due to his continued demands to exercise his "rights" we have to keep paying for an attorney to handle his continuing BS. Things like him taking us back to court to insure his 'rights' (ie visitation) are on paper even though he had been seeing her every other weekend for over a year without any paperwork. We never did anything to prevent him from seeing his child, wether he paid or not, as long as he respected our family. To that end he has never paid a full month of support in the nearly 5 years this action has been going on....and he is the one that initiated the whole thing when the child was 3. Until that point he had never seen the child and continued to claim she was not hisuntil he saw a picture. That turned into a lawsuit asking for full custody and my wife to pay him support. Between lawyers, court ordered therapists to "reunify" a relationship that never existed, etc, etc, etc I'd guess we are in the hole close to $50,000 since it all began.

As it stands we are surviving on portable A/C units, oil filled heaters, and a wood stove for our HVAC since we can't seem to find the $4,000 needed to put in a new system because the last money we had had to go to a lawyer to make sure the order for his visitations was written properly. When you get demand letters several days after court from his attorney telling you you ARE going to do this or that because "the judge said so", and the 'order' he has come up with is so far off of what the judge actually said it's not funny, you have to do something. My wife has gone in pro-se in this deal when possible, and done really well, but one thing we found early on is when it comes to anything pertaining to needing 'contact' with the judge, like getting an order signed and in place, the system does not treat you the same as it does a lawyer. So, ultimately, getting a lawyer is about the only course of action you can follow if you don't want to get run all over. As it is just getting through the BS he caused by going back to get his 'rights' on paper has cost us a bit over $3000....there's the majority of our HVAC replacement fund.

That all said, because of his continued actions my wife is still paying back loans against her 401K from having to deal with his BS, I have to spend more hours working (not seeing my family) than I like, to insure that we not only get the bills paid, but also get a little put back for emergencies to replace all that has already been spent dealing with the biological "emergency". Time I could be spending with my wife and daughter I have to spend cutting and splitting wood for the fire. The list of crap you have to do to support a child and insure her, and the families needs met are endless as you well know.

A the same time we are doing all the things we do, all the things I stated before about the biological father apply. He has money to go the beach but not pay support. His wife, who wasn't working for a long time, always had money to continue her 'beauty shop/spa' routine, he could afford to keep several dogs, several vehicles, satelite TV, two cell phones, a horse, two car payments, a tanning bed, a pool, etc, etc, etc. Like I said, at one point he turned in a sheet showing his monthly bills totaled to nearly $3000 but he somehow kept it all paid with an income of only $700.

Mind you I have no doubt the man 'loves' his child, but he is more concerned about insureing he and his wife have the things they want than he is insuring his child upport payment is paid. Like I said I do it because I love my daughter, and couldn't really car less what he does as far as the actual money goes. Thing is when his actions, or lack thereof effect my being able to do things I want with my family because I am having to work twice as hard to insure he has his rights while his resposnbilities don't seem to exist at all, I begin to have BIG problem. Unfortunately, as I stated earler, the state really doesn't have the capabilities or time to deal with all of the deadbeats nowdays so it's on the custodial parent to insure the deadbeat is held accountable for his/her actions. For those that seem to think otherwise, they either don't have a clue as to how things work nowdays. I way that because I know guys that were paying support 20 plue years ago and it was completely different then. Explain the way thing work now and they simply can not understand it. If there are states/counties that are doing things different, and following the old ways all I can say is the custodial parent should be thanking their lucky stars, because they aren't all like that....as we have come to find over the past 5 years.

That said, we did talk to the state a month or so back so we could avoid some of the attorney fees. Nowdays in NC it cost you $25 per year for them to do anything on your behalf. At the time we talked to the guy he said it would take at least 3 months before they had time to do anything as the backlog of cases was so high.

In the end the wife and I have lived the nightmare. While she was having to do the talking for the pro-se court sessions, I did all of the research. So, as far as what the courts can do, vs what they actually do in practice, I can say from experience there is a big difference. Until both the custodial parents and the court systems both start putting the needs of the child (ie the deadbeat paying his/her support) first again, and denying said deadbeat any 'rights' until their responsibilities are handled, then the system is going to stay broke and the deadbeats will simply continue to skate on by doing as little as possible......because you have to PROVE they are doing it on purpose....and it's all but impossible to do with guys like we are talking about.....or the courts do nothing but slap them on the wrist an tell them to try to do better over and over and over......

Now, let me preface this by saying laws vary from state to state and I can only speak for the laws in mine (CA).

I work for the agency that collects child support/issues the order etc. I can tell you that there is very little we can do for self employed people. If they don't pay we don't arrest them, we don't put out bench warrants etc. All we can do is:
1. suspend their driver's license
2. suspend their passport
3. do bank levies
4. Put a lien on any property they have their name attached to
5. intercept any tax refunds
6. suspend any professional licenses (contractors etc)

It really doesn't matter what he "reports" as we can't do anything with that information other than base any future support amounts on it.

We can take up to 50% of the pay directly from an employer, but the key is that they have to be employed by a real company (not self employed). The squeaky wheel gets some grease, but if somebody complains every week/month etc they will continue to get the same answer, we are working on it and if you can provide any additional information that would be appreciated. We don't make a dime nor do the courts from the money we collect. Any penny we collect (including interest) is given to the custodial party or used to pay back any welfare the custodial parent has received. Whether we collect $1 (people do pay that much) or collect $250,000, not a penny lands in our budget. We are funded by Federal money and State money, not even a local penny.

The good news is that the debt can't be eliminated with a bankruptcy and we will often hold cases open for years (until the dependents have kids and become clients....) trying to collect.

I wish her the best in collecting, but it isn't easy on self employed/unemployed people.

Financially the guy"s a deadbeat, but he"s apparently driving
300 miles or more twice a month to see his illegitimate son,so
there must be something positive there. Be the better man and
embrace that rather than the money issues, and your
grandson will be better for it.