Legal Question in Family Law in Illinois
Both parties live in Cook County, IL
This is a question with many complications:
My son is 11 years old. His father and I were not married at the time of his birth, but married shortly after. We cohabitated for only one year of his life and were officially divorced in 2009. During all that time his father has not contributed ANY money to his care, not necessities, not food, clothing, and certainly not living expenses. In fact, while we were married he decided not to work and acted as a "stay-at-home" dad.
In 2009, he met a girl so he decided to file for the divorce. He knowingly sent the divorce papers to an address I no longer lived at so I was not properly notified of the divorce hearing. In the divorce proceedings he was granted his wishes of not having to contribute financially I think for a reason to the effect of "both parents make enough money"--why or how he convinced a judge to do that I don't know? As this was so long ago, I don't think anything can be done about that, but I would like to take him for child support and have been trying. The Illinois Department of Child Support services told me that I have to go through the court system to get anything done. I had a bad experience with an attorney who used my retainer for unauthorized charges that were not in any agreement, so nothing significant occured as a result of that attempt. It was recently pointed out to me that perhaps the court had thought that we were married when my son was born, but we weren't; doesn't the acknowledgement of paternity that my son's father signed create the obligation to provide for his son from the day of his birth? And if so, please tell me if that would supercede any default court order in place due to my lack of presence at the origianl hearing.
Another complication to this matter is that my son's father STILL doesn't work. He got the woman he is in a relationship with pregnant and lives off of her now. Supposedly he has a medical restriction that says he can't work due to rhabdomyolysis complications-- but this occurred YEARS ago. He states he has no money, but I think secretly he has a settlement or is waiting on a settlement for his condition and is too greedy to contribute.
Please offer advice of where I should start and what, if anything, can be done.
1 Answer from Attorneys
It sounds like a pretty simple case. If you don't want to be represented by counsel then go to the 8th floor of the Daley Center, get a copy of your judgment, hopefully showing that the court awarded you custody of your son and file a Petition to Set Child Support, get a court date and serve notice on your ex. All the rest of it is noise.
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