It goes on and on and on

[nancymd]

DH was divorced in Fredericksburg area in VA. BM still resides there. We are in Oklahoma. DH is 62. He is still working but will not be able to work much longer due to the nature of his job. I am 60 and disabled. I receive SSDI.

I need to give some background but will make it brief as possible. Some comes from DH, some from reports and documents.

DH was afraid BM was, once again, setting him up. She also physically abused him frequently. So he called the police asking for a mediator and went out front to wait. He was arrested. She told him to plead guilty and to cash out his retirement fund and give it to her or he would never see his kids again. He did as told. She denied receiving the $17K in cash when they went to court.

They divorced. In VA, he had worked 2 full time jobs during the last years of their marriage. BM provided his total income during that period but not the info that it was 2 FT jobs. In TN, prevailing wage for his job skill was $13/hour. In VA it was $25. Judge ordered him to pay child support based on $17/hour at 75% from the child support guideline charts. He was devastated and depressed during the separation and divorce so he left VA and moved to TN. He ended up in a VA homeless shelter for part of a year and lived under a bridge part of the year. This put him in arrears for child support so he was arrested and sent to VA to jail.

After 3 months in jail, he signed a contract with DCSE saying he would pay current support, $100/month on arrearages and provide insurance. We have been married almost 10 years and arrearages continue to increase due to interest rates. He has been paying every month during this time.

Last child has now reached 19. He received a letter from DCSE saying he was done with child support ($555 plus $100 on arrearages) for her. Then they sent another letter saying that he was being required to send $655/month until all arrearages, fees and interest are paid off. When we married, arrearages were about $26K. Now they are close to $35K. About $16K is arrearages. The rest is interest.

We have had a tough time dealing with DCSE. The case manager has not returned a call in 3 years. DH just gets a cryptic note from her in response to a faxed letter to her.  Most of the time the notes are unsigned. We have difficulty having customer service reps in the call center making decisions with legal ramifications. They just tell us to hire an attorney to answer our questions. The questions we are asking should be answered by DCSE -- ie our most recent unanswered questions are "what is the APR on this alleged debt" and "how many payments do you estimate the debt will take to pay". We have also asked for a copy of the contract DH signed in their office. He says they did not give him a copy at the time. Now they say that was only to get his driver's license back although they have said it was a court order for payment of arrearages at $100/month.

Since I am now on disability, we don't have the disposable income to hire a lawyer at a $1500 retainer.

Other issues we have had were when we tried to get school, medical and counseling records on the 3 children. We used a letter template from this site and were denied. The superintendent called BM who said DH had "given her the children" and if she or her DH wanted him to have information, they would give it to him. At that, the superintendent denied all information. DH has also been denied visitation. Last year, DH was offered one day visitation IF he paid for his daughter's round trip airfare and we drove 250 miles to pick her up since BM was going to be with her visiting family. They would not allow us to even pay the extra to have her flown here. We declined that visitation saying that one day after 10 years of denial was too short for the $600 it would have cost us.

We are wondering why they can arbitrarily decide to continue our payments at the same monthly rate (more than our mortgage) and why they will not provide us with documentation, APR or estimate of number of payments. Their only response is "get a lawyer". We would if we could but right now we are behind in our mortgage due to this unexpected $655/month payment. We only expected to pay $100/month since that was in the contract.

An additional question we have is what happens if DH dies. Does the obligation still end or do I have to pay it from his estate. There will be very little estate. There will be very little money during retirement because DH gave BM his entire retirement fund with the intention of paying off the child support arrearages 12 years ago.

[bloom6372]

What does the Court Order say about LEGAL custody? Legal and physical are 2 different things, and if DH has joint legal custody, he has every right to access the records of the children. I'd send it again and threaten legal action if they do not provide the information (if DH has joint legal custody).

As for the child support--I'd go INTO the office and get copies of everything. Yes, it's a trip. But, when you are there, you can actually FORCE them to talk to you (rather than through USPS, email, phone, whenever they are available). I've never dealt with arrearages, but it seems that they want you to continue the same payments until arrearages are paid off rather than just paying the $100 for arrearages. I can see why they would want that, being $30+K in arrearages. I would, however, make sure to get a print out of THE ENTIRE RECORD, including payments.

I do believe that since it is a debt, if something were to happen to him, they could go after his estate for that money.

[MixedBag]

Virginia!!!  -- any other folks here from Virginia?

I think I'd be doing a few things....

1.  WRITE a CERTIFIED returned receipt letter and give them 30 days to answer your questions -- mainly WHAT is the interest rate?

2.  If they don't answer, write UP the chain of command -- like supervisor and the supervisor's supervisor, maybe even go to the state's level.

Once you have the interest rate, a time table can be figured out yourself using an "amoritization" sheet that you can find on line.  If you can't find one, drop me an e-mail and I'll send you one that works with MSWord2007.

Parenting time.....did I catch that the daughter/child is now 19?  If that's true, I think that the window of opportunity to enforce the parenting time rules has passed.  Dad was bullied into believing everything that happened in the past.    Even for records, if dad has joint custody, he was told the wrong thing. 

3.  Call the courthouse and clerk of records and ask for their address and how much it would cost to get a copy of his entire file.  Then write them a request for it, send it via a traceable method of mail (I like priority confirmed delivery), and send them a money order to pay for the copies.  THAT way you can see exactly what's in the folder -- or at least what they copied for you which should be 99% accurate.

That interest rate you're talking about might also be found in the Virginia State Code on line -- or what about finding the state's website?  It might tell you what the rate is. 

I'd keep sending in $100, understanding that dad is behind.   Then after gathering all this information -- like making sure their math is and has been right, I'd figure out how to set a court date to get CS arrears reviewed.  You may have to file a motion with the clerk, have the CSE folks served (and Mom), and then take it from there.  Maybe once a date is set, THEN they will talk to you and be reasonable. 

4.  Can dad gather up PROOF of the money the paid before that mom claimed he never paid?

The fact that you are on SSDI is irrelevant in the big scheme of things.

It might be that if he goes to court, the judge will find a middle -- something less than the $655, and more than $100. 

As for "if he dies" -- yes, I bet that the mother can go after any value that's in his estate.  So start putting stuff in YOUR name only, to protect yourself.

[ocean]

Pain ...but yeah you will have to go there. When was the last time he was in court over child support?
If it was a long time ago, get the paperwork sent to you for modification of child support (some states have it online).
File papers asking for child to be emancipated and that arrears to be calculated and reset. You will have to go there for court or take a big chance and ask for a telephone hearing...

[nancymd]

Thanks so much for the information. I'll pass it on to DH.

He's very depressed right now.  The child support plus arrearages has been coming from his checks by  payroll deduction and DCSE has left it that way.  There's little work in his company right now and he doesn't get paid when he doesn't work. Hopefully it will pick up. In the meantime, 2 weeks ago, he had no hours. Last week he had 20. This week he had 6. $151 comes off the top for the payment to DCSE. We are behind a month in the mortgage. I have 10 specialists that I have to see and they are all wanting money on the copays that we don't have. I keep asking them for cheaper medications because the copays are high even with discount cards from the manufacturer. We know that DCSE is not concerned with my disabilities but my health is so poor that I can't earn any additional money to help and I've had my heart stop several times in the last 4 months because of medication issues. That makes me feel guilty because I'm costing DH so much.

The system in Virginia seems to be very strange. It cost us nearly $3,000 a couple of years ago to have one of DH's sons removed from child support when the kid was in the Marine Corps and we could document it. He should have been automatically removed. So for several months DH was paying child support for a Marine. He was not allowed to have a refund or to have that amount taken from arrearages. It just went to his ex-wife.

He applied for a telephone hearing once but the judge, even after approving his attendance by phone, refused to allow him to speak. Documentation was provided ahead of time for the hearing.

[bloom6372]

If DH was paying for an emancipated child (the Marine), that money should NOT have been going to BM unless it went as arrearages. It should have been applied, as he was no longer a minor child.