Child Support Modification Order and Nonpayment

1

My ex-husband is one month away from being a year behind in child support. I am now going to dss after a year of back and forth between my lawyer and his trying to receive child support with no response or movement towards receiving any monies. Now that Dss has the case our court date has been continued twice by my ex’s lawyer. Now after a 11 months of no payment his lawyer brings forth a motion of modification that they filed in 2016. I have multiple conversations of emails showing that I submitted my income information I. 2016,207,& 2018 but yet they never modified the support amount. (In the fall of 2016 my youngest child began Kindergarten and no longer had day care cost, only after school cost for both girls.) I have been told that because they filed the modification motion but never acted to modify, he isn’t going to be held accountable for being in contempt of the original 2015 child support order. That there will now, two years later be a new worksheet completed that will be modified from the 2016 numbers and that he will receive credit for any overage that was paid in 2016-2017 and then the rears for 2017-2018 when he just stopped paying child support with be will be adjusted. He receives credit for his overage based on new modified order.

  1. Why if they filed the modification in 2016, and had all of my income information are they not held accountable for modifying the order?
  2. Why, even with the filed modification order isn’t he in contempt for nonpayment of child support for the past year?
  3. I have faxes from September of 2017-March of 2018 between our lawyers repeatedly stating his client was behind, with the last fax in March of 2018 statungbi would be gojng to dss. All of those times they had the opportunity to modify but instead I have enormous layer bills for faxes and he was not going to do anything except not pay and continue letting me acquire lawyer bills knowing that there was a modification order that they never acted on.

Please advise…

Thank you

2

  1. Your current child support order remains in effect and is a valid order until it is modified by the court, regardless of any motions that may be filed. A motion by itself does not change the terms of court order. Therefore, your order is likely still valid and he is likely still responsible under its terms.

  2. You will likely have to file a contempt motion (called a motion and order to appear and show cause) in order for a judge to be able to hear evidence and determine if he should be held in contempt of the current child support order. Otherwise the issue of contempt will not be properly before the judge.

Anna Ayscue

Attorney with Rosen Law Firm Cary • Chapel Hill • Durham • Raleigh • Wake Forest

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