Hello. I recently found out that my dad died. I only met a few times in my life. He never was around when I was growing up and didn't pay child support. My mom had liens on everything but he would just put everything in my step mothers name so we couldn't get to it. We live in California and he lived in Arizona. Well he owes for both child support and interest on unpaid child support. My mom was able to finally get the child support debt paid which leaves the interest on the back child support. My dad has passed and he still owes my mom $40,000 in interest. How does she go about getting that money from my step mother? I hear she has a life insurance policy that is to pay $150,000 can my mom somehow get paid before my step mother? Where do we go from here? I would really like to put all of this to rest and move on. Any advice?

Since the life insurance goes to a beneficiary and not the estate, it was never his for him to get.

Your mom needs to contact child support enforcement for your state and explain to them the situation. Chances are though that she is out the 40k.