North Carolina CSE

North Carolina Divorce Law Divorce and Separation Answers
1

I have been making regular and timely child support payments, pursuant to the North Carolina guidelines.

My separated spouse has announced that she is going to NC CSE to obtain back support on my remote visitation expenses, that were previously applied to child support as extraordinary expenses. There is no court order. All child support has been paid pursuant to voluntary agreement, including six months of acceptance of payments, subject to these extraordinary expenses.

I have three questions:

  1. Should I expect correspondence from CSE or an immediate service of process and litigation;

  2. In the event of litigation, will the venue be in Wake county, where the marriage was spent and where I am domiciled, or in Mecklenburg county, where my separated spouse currently resides; and

  3. What legal resources are available in North Carolina? I would expect to find annotated cases and statutes, West and Matthew Bender digests, and Shepard’s citations. Are there family law treatises available, such as Witkin’s California Family Law or publications by a local continuing education of the bar?

Thank you.

Thank you.

2

All CSE offices work differently. Some will try to contact you to work out an agreement prior to filing suit and setting hearing dates, and others will go forward with setting a hearing. If you have an agreement in place, she is not eligible to receive retroactive support for that time period. Jurisdiction will likely be in Mecklenburg County.

Lexis Nexis publishes North Carolina Family and Related Laws Annotated and a treatise called Lee’s North Carolina Family Law which are a good place to start your legal research.