My ex and I had a separation agreement that was not incorporated into our divorce. I have been paying child support that is not court ordered and does not go through central collections, but is paid directly to the ex. I missed a payment in August and called her beforehand to let her know what was going on and that as soon as I found out more information I would call her to work out the repayment. (The problem was IRS related and stemmed from our divorce). She promptly went to CSE and filed for court ordered support based on non - payment. The CSE agency contacted my empoyer, ran the guidelines and arrived at a support amount. None of this was communicated to me during my contact with them. I agreed to pay the amount that our agreement was for and that I would pay Central Collections directly. The paperwork arrived for me to sign, but was set up for a wage garnishment. I will not sign this, they won’t amend it. I agreed to a garnishment at the guideline amount but the ex refused this. I have paid for a few legal consulations but each lawyer is quoting between 3 and 5K in a lump sum to represent me in this child support case. One of them told me that the agreement would have to be sued for separately in District Court. As it stands right now, I keep waiting for the CSE agency to serve me, I am afraid to keep paying the current support, and terrified of what is going to happen if I show up in court without a lawyer. I don’t want to pay her and get in a double payment situation because I can’t afford it and she would keep the money. I am setting her current payments aside to save them until this is resolved, but I know that it can be tacked on to the order as arrears.
Basically if this going to be court ordered and garnished, I want to pay the guideline amount and she can sue separately for the difference if that is indeed the case.