Ask Me Help Desk - Financial Abandonment?

My ex and I split up when I was still pregnant. He said he wanted to be in our son's life so my son has his last name and my ex is on the birth certificate. When my son was 6 months old we had a support order established and my ex willingly signed the papers. My ex has always wanted to see our son, but has never been good at supporting him. My son is 29months old and my ex is 10months behind in paying child support. It has been 6 months since I have received a penny for our son. My ex still wants to see our son, but I have to drive him there, provide food, clothes, and diapers. I have a child support inforcment case established, but my ex does not have a job or any sort of property.

I want to know if I can file an abandonment because theoreticly my ex has abandoned his son. Maybe if the cops come knocking at my ex's door maybe he will be a little bit motivated to get a job.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leslie1984

My ex and I split up when I was still pregnant. He said he wanted to be in our son's life so my son has his last name and my ex is on the birth certificate. When my son was 6 months old we had a support order established and my ex willingly signed the papers. My ex has always wanted to see our son, but has never been good at supporting him. My son is 29months old and my ex is 10months behind in paying child support. It has been 6 months since I have recieved a penny for our son. My ex still wants to see our son, but I have to drive him there, provide food, clothes, and diapers. I have a child support inforcment case established, but my ex does not have a job or any sort of property.

I want to know if i can file an abandonment because theoreticly my ex has abandoned his son. Maybe if the cops come knocking at my ex's door maybe he will be a little bit motivated to get a job.

Actually you may want to contact the office where you have an established support order, where they can enforce child support.. I don't know your location but in some states they will issue a warrant for his arrest where he would be placed in jail.. His bail will consist of the back child support he owes. However in certain states the judge will give a timeframe of 30 days for him to get a job it really depends on the state.. I know NJ does that along with revoking driver's license and passport.

Even though he is not paying financial support, he is still visiting with your son and therefore has not abandoned him. I doubt that any court would establish that he has. He is, of course, still responsible for the paying of child support, including arrearages. I don't honestly know if this is something that the police would bother to get involved with but it's surprising that whatever agency in your state handles child support enforcement hasn't taken some sort of action against your ex since he hasn't paid in almost a year. Perhaps you may want to discuss with your ex that the child needs food, clothing, etc. so it's important for your ex to get a job and start paying up. Otherwise you may wan to contact your state's child support agency directly and advise them (even though they should already be aware of it) that he hasn't paid in nearly a year.

I live in Georgia... Sorry meant to put that in the first post.

I called my case worker last week because my ex received his tax returns and the state did not take out what he owes me in back child support. She told me all that really can be done now is to take away his drivers license and then jail time. My ex hasn't had his license since I met him in 03 and I doubt he will be trying to get it back anytime soon. My case worker said that it would take a while for the courts to get to my case since it is considered a civil case and not criminal.

I told my ex that if he wanted to see his son anymore he would find a way out to my house to pick him up and a way to bring him back home (as stated in our custody orders)

Do you have visitation order?
If so it should include who is responsible for transportation. If not maybe you need to amend it. Have it put in that your ex is responsible for picking the child up at the beginning of his visit and you are responsible for getting him at the end. So if he is to lazy to come get the child then it isn't your problem. Also amend the child support to reflect that he is responsible for the food, clothing and general care of the child while in his care. Also you could add that he is responsible for buying a certain amount of clothing to buy the child. (My hubby has custody of his daughter and the mother is responsible for buying 200 dollars worth of clothing when school starts and 200 during the winter. ) Also he should be responsible for half of acedemics, childcare, and extra ciricular activities. You could really stick it to him if he wants to be a pain. But he uis the father and should care for the child 50/50 no excuses.

But if your ex has no job then how is he getting a tax refund? If he is working then his employer should be garnishing his wages to pay the child support. And actually, whatever agency in Georgia handles child support enforcement could very easily intercept his tax refund (unless he's already received it) and use it to offset some of the back child support he owes. If he is also getting a refund from the state of Georgia (I don't know if Georgia has a state income tax or not) then that can be intercepted as well. And if your visitation order stipulates that he is responsible for providing your son's transportation to and from visits then of course you can hold him to that.

The wheels turn slowly, but he will get his. States are getting very touchy about child support issues. Abandonment is a stretch though, but you have enough ammo in the other areas to make his life miserable.

GA processes tax refunds interception in September and I didn't open my case until November. (I was a very nice "baby's Momma" for way too long) My ex lost his most recent job back in September and had worked there for 9 months before that so I'm pretty sure he received a decent tax refund.