Legal Question in Family Law in South Carolina
child support summons
My husband has a daughter from a previous marriage - his ex-wife left with the child over 7 years ago with no word, then last year we received a notice from DSS for child support - his ex-wife made no attempts prior to this to contact him. We had trouble from the beginning getting in contact with DSS, so they put through an order to with hold the support from his paycheck. That was fine until I took a new job that allowed one of us to stay home - we had been working to get to this point so that we could start up our own business and therefore have one parent home when we had kids. We have made repeated attempts to contact DSS to find out how to send in the support as we do not live in that area anymore and have no way to contact his ex-wife to make payment arrangements, they will not contact us back and now we have received a summons to court for back payment. We are fully willing to pay child support for his daughter, but how much of an issue is it going to be that he is not working and does not intend to hold a regular job if while we work to get our business started? And how will they calculate what the support will be? I make significantly more that my husband did before he stopped working and now he has no income.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: child support summons
If he is able to work but is not working, the Court can (and will) impute income to him based on his earning capacity. I doubt that the Court will have much sympathy that he could not find out where to send the payments, as that is typically easily available.
It sounds as though he is being ruled in for a contempt hearing, which could result in his being incarcerated, fined, etc. It is important that they be handled correctly. Therefore, it is important that you consult an experienced family law attorney to find out what options are available to your husband at this time.
If you need more information, you can visit my family law blog (www.SCFamilyLaw.com) or our website (www.StevensFirm.com). I wish you the best of luck.
Ben Stevens
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