4 Little Known Facts To Enforce Child Support

If you are a single parent, receiving child support from the other biological parent can be challenging, especially if that parent has no interest in the child or has moved to a different state. Many single parents, for this reason, give up on attempting to receive child support from the other parent. However, here are four little known facts that can help you to enforce child support:

1. Enforcement Through Retirement Plans: If the other parent has a retirement plan, they are protected from creditors collecting debt from it. However, the same is not the case when it comes to child support. If you have the qualifying court orders from the judge, child support can be enforced through the parent's retirement plan. 
2. Enforcement for Health Care: If you do not have a job that provides health insurance coverage for your child, but the parent you are attempting to collect child support from does, a court issue can be ordered for the parent to include your child on their health plan. On top of this, there can be a court issue for the parent to pay for at least half of the health insurance coverage you are paying out of pocket for, which would be the case if neither of you has a job that comes with health benefits. 
3. Enforcement Through Delinquency: Whenever the parent is late on paying child support because they do not have a job where the child support amount can automatically be taken from their paycheck, the court can find the parent delinquent on the payments. In this case, the parent will have to pay a penalty for each late payment, which can add up to much more than what the original child support order has asked for. Because of this, it enforces the parent to pay so that they don't have these penalties stacked against them. 
4. Enforcement Through a Trust: If the parent who is refusing to pay child support has received a trust from a family member who has passed, the court can order for this trust money to go directly to the parent taking care of the child. This way, the parent with the trust is not able to withhold the money from the child they are supposed to be caring for. 

When you know these four little known ways child support can be enforced, you can be sure that you are not giving up on retaining these funds. A family law attorney can also help you determine which methods are best to take based on the other parent's current financial situation.