Legal Question in Family Law in Massachusetts
child support is for my 21 year old daughter who is a full time college student with pretty much a full boat to college. She also lives at the school and has a full time summer job as well as a year round job at school. My ex-wife has sold the marital home, moved out of state and remarried. She has no mortgage and or debt. In 2009 she took me to court for child support, uninsured medicals and college expenses which were in arrears. The judge lowered my child support and settled on the other expenses for me to pay and found it not necessary for me to contribute towards college expenses. As I am a commissioned mortgage broker my income has been very low and I have to rob Peter to pay Paul. In February of 2010, where I was 3 weeks behind( I get paid wice a month), my ex-wife turned my file over to the MASS DOR to collect my child support. Unbeknownst to me on July 15th, DOR garnished my wages for child support and child support in arrears totalling 61% of my disposable income. There is no justification for child support or this treatment.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Hello,
When child support is paid through MA DOR and you are behind in child support, DOR can garnish your wages and/or levy any accounts with your Social Security Number attached. The only way to correct the situation is to contact DOR and settle your account with them. You would have to mark up a hearing on a DOR day and negotiate with the assigned DOR attorney an amount per week that you could afford going towards your arrears in addition to your court ordered weekly child support, otherwise DOR will continue to garnish and/or levy your accounts until the balance is paid in full.
With regards to whether or not you should be paying child support for your daughter given the scenario you described above, if your daughter's residence is still considered to be at her mother's home (meaning that is her permanent residence and where she spends her nights when on school breaks) then you would most likely still be obligated to pay child support up until she is no longer a full-time student or she reaches the age of 23, whichever comes first. If your income has changed since your last court hearing on child support in 2009 than you can file a complaint for modification to reduce you child support payments based on your further reduction in income.
If you are interested in a free consultation you can contact me at 617-523-3200 or via email at [email protected].
Thank you,
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