[Solved] Have to pay Child support in USA - I need help.

Are you resident in the UK or the USA?

UK

Hi Stu

Where did you attend court?

In the UK the CSA is worked out as a percentage of your salary.

Generally, to change the amount a court order says you should pay you would return to court for a variation. If a court order for maintenance has been in place for 12 months or longer either parent can override the court order by opening a claim with the CSA (now known as the CMS)

It might be useful to get a free half hour with a solicitor, quite a few offer this....or have a chat to someone at the CAB

And the child and mother live in the US?

The rules applied for calculation of the maintenance amount WIILL BE the rules of the country in which the initial application was made.

It seems that in your case the application was made in the US and the determination was made by a US court.
The reciprocity agreement between US and UK means that the UK CMA will only be concerned with enforcing the order made by the US court where the kid resides.

was in Orange County California.

I have a local CAB so will try and pop in there during this week to see what info/options are available to me.

Reckon I'm screwed. Like I said don't mind paying child support for my son but cant afford what the judge ordered I pay.4 years back payment im probably in debt already by around $40,000 and counting.....

Here in the UK once a court order has been in place for 12 months it can be overridden by the CMS, so it's worth finding out if you can apply to the CMS here and get the amount varied. ...it wouldn't help with any arrears that have built up though.

Hi Stu

Thank you for your post. I am William the Child Maintenance Options consultant. I will provide some information that may help answer your query.

In general, if a receiving parent who lives abroad has a court order in place for child maintenance, she can contact the court in her country and request the arrangement to be enforced by the Reciprocal Enforcement of Maintenance Orders (REMO). This is an agreement set up via the British Government with other countries, to enable citizens to receive maintenance if a parent lives abroad. You can find a full list of participating countries at www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/protecting-the-vulnerable/official-solicitor/reciprocal-enforcement-of-maintenance-orders/remo-location-list.pdf. For further guidance, you may wish to contact the REMO unit of the Official Solicitor and Public Trustee. Their contact details can be found on Gov.uk at https://www.gov.uk/remo-unit-helpline. You may also wish to seek legal advice to gain further clarification on your situation.

With regards to the other ways to put child maintenance in place, you could try negotiating child maintenance directly with your son’s mother in the form of a family-based arrangement. With this type of agreement, there are no strict rules to stick to. Therefore, both you and your son’s mother have the freedom to decide the terms of your own arrangement such as how much child maintenance will be paid and the form that it will be paid in.

A family-based arrangement does not need to be all about money although many parents do include regular contributions. Your arrangement could include other kinds of support, such as you directly paying for things that your son may need. Family-based arrangements are not legally-binding, however, many parents prefer them because of their flexibility and ease of which they can be reviewed (such as if you or your son’s circumstances change). You can find more information on family-based arrangements on our website at http://www.cmoptions.org/en/family/index.asp. However, please note that some of the information contained our website may only apply when both parents live in the UK.

For more information on the ways to set up child maintenance, please visit our website at http://www.cmoptions.org. Alternatively, you can call us free on 0800 988 0988 between 8am and 8pm Monday to Friday or 9am and 4pm on a Saturday. We have a sorting out separation web-app that you may find useful. It offers help and support to separating and separated families. The link is: www.dad.info/divorce-and-separation/sorting-out-separation.

Regards

William