If you are a custodial parent and your ex-spouse is not paying you or has fallen behind in payments, you can ask the court to enforce your child support order. In most cases, the court will collect both past-due support and arrearages.

A court order for child support will set out the amount of money that you owe your ex-spouse and how much it is supposed to be paid each month. There are several ways that the court can enforce your order, including wage garnishment and administrative offset.

Wage Garnishment: The state or federal government can garnish a non-custodial parent’s wages, such as income from a job, worker’s compensation, or unemployment benefits, if they are not already being withheld. This method may be a good way to get your ex-spouse’s attention and get them to pay you.

Contempt: If the non-custodial parent willfully fails to follow the court’s orders, the court can find them in contempt. This is an illegal act and they can be fined or sent to jail for a fixed period of time.

License Suspension: In some states, if the non-custodial parent has a driver’s license or a professional, occupational, or recreational license, the state can suspend it until he pays his child support.

Liens and Attachments: If the non-custodial parents own real estate, a car, or bank accounts, the court can issue liens against the property to ensure that they pay child support on time. This can also be a good way to make the parent sell the property or take it with them when they move away from the state.

Passport Denial: As a way to discourage non-custodial parents from leaving the country, the government can deny a non-custodial parent’s passport if their child support is not being paid on time.

Other Legal Options: If you live outside the state where your ex-spouse resides, you can file a Two-State Enforcement Action with the court where your child lives. This is often necessary in situations where the non-custodial parent is living in another state or in a foreign country and you are not able to establish personal jurisdiction over them through the local court system.

In most instances, the Law Department will be assigned to a case of this type.

The State of New York has a number of laws that regulate the child support enforcement process and allow us to work across borders. You can obtain information about these laws and how they apply to your case from the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) on the Internet.

OCSE can help you with your child support problems by working with you to ensure that your payments are made on time and in full. We can assist you with setting up payment arrangements, enforcing a court order for payments, and collecting unpaid balances.

You can also contact the OCSE for legal advice or to discuss a case with an expereienced divorce & family lawyer in Miami . For more details, visit the OCSE website at:

The Law Department can help you file an enforcement action in the court that issued your child support order. You can also request that the court send a notice of the enforcement action to the non-custodial parent. You can also request that the court order the non-custodial parent to stop preventing your children from seeing you and continue paying their support on time.