Legal Question in Family Law in California

You leave open the question of whether parental rights ACTUALLY WERE terminated in 1988. You also omit your daughter’s age in 1986 but doing the math it would seem to have been four.

So with that said, here is what I can tell you.

IF your parental rights ACTUALLY WERE terminated you owe back child support at $204/month from when the support order was entered until parental rights were terminated, PLUS INTEREST at 10% per year from the date each payment was due, until paid. Child support is owed to the child, not the custodial parent, so your ex’s death doesn’t change it. And wven if it was owed to your ex, it would be a debt to her estate that her heirs could collect.

The really bad news is if the parental rights were NOT terminated. If so, every monthly payment is still owed with interest until she turned 18; that’s 14 years of back payments plus interest. The fact that you did not follow up to determine if the petition was granted or not doesn’t get you out of the support if it was not.

The only good news is that the courts have the power to make adjustments to the amount of interest owed in the interests of justice and fairness, but the judge has no power to reduce the basic payments owed.